Grosjean: Nice to know I can still drive 

Romain Grosjean hopes to turn his torrid start to the 2018 Formula 1 season into a “positive spiral” after scoring his best qualifying result of the year at the Austrian Grand Prix. 

The Haas driver has endured his worst start to an F1 campaign having failed to score a single point from the opening eight rounds this season, but stared in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring with a brilliant lap to set the sixth-quickest time in Q3 and outpace the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo. 

Grosjean will start Sunday’s race from fifth on the grid with Sebastian Vettel set to drop three places after picking up a penalty for impeding Renault’s Carlos Sainz, and the Frenchman is determined to turnaround his fortunes by converting his qualifying performance into a strong result. 

“It’s one day to be good and get a perfect weekend. It would be nice to relaunch a positive spiral because its been a negative since Melbourne,” Grosjean said. 

“Some have been my fault, some from just pure bad luck. This weekend everything is working well and I’m looking forward to race tomorrow. 

“It’s nice to know that I’m still on it and I still know how to drive and I can produce good results and that things can go smoothly,” he told Sky. 

“It was just a bad run going on and it was really hard to stop it. But I’m glad we’ve done that and now I just want tomorrow to go well so I restart on a positive and build from there.”

When asked if he felt one positive result could completely change his season, Grosjean replied: “It does tend to work that way. It’s not always the case but I know what I need and once its there it starts to get better again.”

Haas team principal Günther Steiner said it was important Grosjean showed he can deliver strong performances. 

“After a streak like he had, I think it was 12 races without points, it’s a long time for him,” Steiner explained. 

“He still hasn’t got points but to make a qualifying like this. Its very important for him to have shown he can deliver. I think he will sleep well tonight and he deserves it.”

Steiner added he was relieved to see his team turn the promising pace of its car into a strong grid position. 

"It's feels pretty good. We had a wonderful day and we hope we have a wonderful day tomorrow. That's it. Nothing more to add. Keep doing what we are doing and not screwing it up."

Kevin Magnussen - who will start three places behind his teammate and behind both Red Bull drivers in eighth - is unsure whether Haas will have the pace to beat Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo in the race. 

“I am not sure we are faster than them,” he said. “I think we are almost on par with them on race pace. If we can get in front then [maybe] but you need to be more than two-tenths faster to overtake so let’s see.”