Romain Grosjean says he will only know whether his new team Haas F1 is capable of scoring points when it gets its car on track at the first test of 2016.
Grosjean will leave Lotus at the end of this year to join the new American team led by Gene Haas, who is hoping his success in NASCAR can be replicated in Formula One. Haas F1 will be the first brand new team in F1 since Hispania, Lotus Racing and Virgin joined the grid in 2010 and only one of those still survives in the form of Manor, which has scored just two points in six years of competition.
However, Haas is taking a different approach to the previous new entries and has a close tie up with Ferrari that allows it access to Maranello's wind tunnel and other facilities. Grosjean, who will be joined by Esteban Gutierrez at the team next year, believes Haas is making progress towards being competitive from the start of next season, but admits he will not know for certain until the car starts running next year.
"I can't tell you too much, but we have got the gearbox and engine of Ferrari, we are using their wind tunnel so the correlation with the track should be good and we have their simulator," he said. "So we have as much as you can get from the biggest team in Formula One, so they are all question marks that we don't have.
"Then the time that the team took to get to Formula One, they wanted an experienced driver and they signed one and here we are and away we go. I don't know if we are going to score points; the first test will tell us a little bit and the first race more, but I think we are working well to achieve that."
After four years at Lotus, Grosjean is looking forward to the new challenge at Haas F1.
"It's a very exciting new chapter of my career. I met Gene Haas and Guenther Stiener, they told me a little bit about the project, I signed and they told me more. I'm very, very happy that I am a part of this American team, I think it is going to be a great adventure and we are going to do the best we can to be competitive from early on.
"It is a new team but it has a very clever idea and the partnership with Ferrari is very strong and we should have a car up and running at the first test and be able to develop from there."