Romain Grosjean: Haas F1 team's results in debut races are "crazy"

The American newcomer scored points on its debut in Australia with Grosjean's sixth after benefiting from a red flag situation but fifth in Bahrain was more impressive given it was achieved in normal circumstances.

On Saturday, Grosjean admitted he was pleased Nico Hulkenberg pushed him down to ninth in qualifying because it was key to the team's race strategy to avoid Q3 and have tyre freedom.

The Frenchman ran three stints on the super-softs before bolting on the softs for the final stint and that allowed him to maximise the pace of the car and finish behind only two Mercedes, a Ferrari and a Red Bull.

"It's an amazing performance from all of us," said Grosjean, who is fifth in the drivers' championship, three points clear of Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.

"Sixth in Australia was a bit of luck but fifth with a normal race is quite crazy.

"We had an aggressive strategy on tyres, we knew the super-soft was the best for us.

"I had a good feeling for us as we had good management of degradation on the super-softs so we had three stints on new sets.

"The whole strategy was around this.

"It was fun being able to overtaking Williams, Toro Rosso, Red Bull and have some good battles."

Grosjean said it has been a "dream debut" but the team must continue to manage expectations.

"We have to keep our feet on the ground and realise there will be days where things will be harder," he said.

"It's a dream debut and we have to use it as a morale boost.

"Last night everyone was tired because of the amount of work we had to do behind the scenes trying to catch up on a lot of things, but these types of races are high reward for us."

Team boss Gunther Steiner was pleased with the performance but it was tempered by Esteban Gutierrez retiring for the second successive race.

"We didn't expect fifth," said Steiner. "We always said we could get points but fifth is pretty good.

"I'm not pleased about Esteban. We have to investigate what it is.

"We had a problem on the front left, we think it is something on the brake."

Gutierrez added: "Apparently one of the brake discs broke. What can I say? There is not much to say."