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Grosjean happy to wait in the wings for Ferrari

Romain Grosjean insists that he is content to spend a second year with the Haas F1 team if it keeps him in contention for a possible seat at Ferrari in the future.

For all his early troubles as an F1 driver, the Frenchman has carved out a solid reputation in the top flight, putting him the middle of any conversation concerning a drive with the Maranello-based squad.

However, when Ferrari decided to re-sign Kimi Raikkonen as team-mate to Sebastian Vettel for 2017, Grosjean - who says he only found out about the deal from the press - knew that he'd have to wait at least another twelve months for the opportunity to don the famous scarlet overalls.

Despite that, the Frenchman maintains he'd be happy to spend another year in the waiting room at Haas, which relies heavily on Ferrari after making its F1 debut this year.

An early season surprise as he took sixth and fifth places in the opening rounds in Australia and Bahrain, Grosjean's year has had ups and downs since - with further points from Russia and Austria interspersed with lowly finishes and two DNFs - but he says another year with the US-based team would not be a hindrance to his long-term ambition of representing the Prancing Horse.

"I'm sure there's a reason behind the decision [to keep Raikkonen]," Grosjean said. "With the new regulations, big changes, you kind of want to keep the same driver line-up. On the other hand, I am pretty happy here. We are doing a great job and I really want to put Haas on the podium at one point. There's some work to do to achieve that, but who knows? Everything is possible."

With the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo - not to mention F1 upstart Max Verstappen - continually being rumoured as a target for Ferrari, and the Scuderia having a host of young talent of its own on the single-seater ladder, Grosjean knows that he does not have a clear path to Maranello, and refuses to put himself at the head of the queue.

"I don't know," he said of his place in the pecking order, "I know that I've got the Ferrari engine, I work with Ferrari engineers and they know how I work. I know I've been on the podium a few times in my career, which always helps to go to a big team. After that, I hope I am [in pole position] but I don't know. As I say, I'm very happy here. Yes, if there's a chance to go to Ferrari, there's no way I would say no. That's a team I've loved since I was eight years old. I want to be a world champion and I think that's where you get a good shot at it, so we'll see.

"But you never know in racing. Your day may come or it may never. I want to win races, I want to be world champion. That's why I'm racing in F1. To do that, you need the car and there isn't many teams that can give you the car to be world champion - maybe three or four on the grid. You need to be in a good time in a good place, [but] sometimes it never happens and you may never have the chance.

"There are always talks and I never hide the fact that I wanted one day to drive for Ferrari but, so far, [staying at Haas] not a problem at all. Being here is a great experience, I don't regret anything from changing teams and I really feel very good here. I think I've got quite an important role in the team and, for me, in terms of experience and in terms of career, it's a great thing."

Zdroj: crash.net