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Haas tight on spare parts for F1 debut in Australian GP

Haas heads into its Formula 1 debut tight on spare parts, according to Romain Grosjean

The American team goes into this weekend's season-opening Australian Grand Prix running two cars for the first time, off the back of a troublesome second test at Barcelona.

Assessing the difference between starting this year with Haas and a year ago at Lotus, Grosjean said: "We don't have many spare parts, but it's a different problem.

"We didn't have time to build them [this year], and we didn't get them last year [at Lotus]."

Following a solid first test, with only a front-wing failure on the opening morning blighting the team's running, throughout the course of the second test Haas then suffered a fuel system issue, turbocharger problem and a brake-by-wire fault.

Grosjean added: "There will be problems, there always have been in Formula 1 through a season.

"We will probably discover more than other teams, but from what we have learned through testing, it should help us get a lot more knowledge and be ready for being here."

Team principal Gunther Steiner has confirmed the car specification is relatively unchanged from testing other than "heat protection in certain areas".

The main focus has instead been on ensuring both Grosjean and team-mate Esteban Gutierrez each have a car ready and set-up well for this weekend.

Steiner said: "The biggest thing has been building the second car.

"One car to go testing is one thing, but building a second car, all within a week, it wasn't easy.

"The lessons we have taken is what we learned, not to get too clever, get the second car ready for the race and keep working at it.

"We didn't invent anything new, just the engineers looking at the data, studying everything, to come up with a set up for this first race."

Steiner recognises without the set-up work that would have been the focus in week two of testing, but was compromised by a lack of running, scoring points on the team's debut is now highly unlikely.

"If all the stars are aligned, it's realistic, but a lot of stars need to line up," he said.

"The car is a good platform, but now we have to hit the right set up.

"The other people here are not stupid, they have done more work than us so they will improve.

"If we hit the set up right and we build some confidence it's possible, but the stars need to line up."

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