Haas has regained early-season speed

Following a few difficult races for the outfit, Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez were both hopeful of making it through to Q2 in Monte Carlo after ending final practice just outside the top 10.

Team principal Gunther Steiner believes the team had benefited greatly from a better understanding of its car during Barcelona testing last week, and could aim high again this weekend.

"It seems we are where we were at the beginning of the year," said Steiner. "We are closer to McLaren, and the Renault seems to be behind. I hope we can repeat it [in qualifying].

"I think pace wise, Q2 should be pretty safe. It is never safe here because you just need to get in to a red flag or something stupid or your lap, but normally we should be there. Absolutely."

Q2 target

Grosjean, who was 15th in the afternoon, said: "The balance is getting there, things are getting there. We have more work to do and we know where to work, whereas Barcelona we were a bit lost.

"But it is pretty alright. Things are going pretty much as we want. We have a lot of room for improvement, but I think with good data we can do that.

"I think our best qualifying was P9 and if we can equal that that would be nice."

Gutierrez, who was 13th fastest in the afternoon, believed the key to form would be getting tyres perfectly prepared for qualifying.

"We just need to find consistency in the way we prepare the tyres," he said. "I think there we can find a bit of time.

"Probably Monaco will not be a straightforward test for that. But in the following races we need to be consistent on putting the tyres in the right point for the first lap and extracting the most from them."

Test boost

Steiner said that having two days of testing after the Spanish Grand Prix was a huge help to the team, which has struggled recently with getting the most from its tyres.

"The test last week helped us for sure," he said. "That is one of the things which people say – if people say what would you have liked to have done different, I would have liked to have had a few more testing days.

"If you go to testing, it is a different atmosphere. You don't have the pressure of the race weekend with three hours for each car on a Friday and if you don't get it all in it's not good.

"All in all, we are not bad off."