Grosjean reveals he almost copied Ferrari's inter-howler

Haas F1's Romain Grosjean has revealed that he was "very close" to making the same mistake as Ferrari, which was to go out in Q3 on intermediates rather than on slicks.

The Frenchman, who has been given another year at Haas after performing well in the second half of the season, was excellent on Saturday at Suzuka, finishing qualifying on an impressive P5-place, leaving the likes of Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo behind him in P9 and P15 respectively.

However, things could've gone very differently for Grosjean, he has revealed, as he almost made the same massive mistake as Ferrari did, going out on intermediates rather than slicks at the start of Q3.

Asked how close he was to making the decision to go out on inters, Grosjean looked relieved.

"Very close, very close," he told Autosport.

"We had all the settings on the steering wheel for inters.

"Tyre switch, brake balance, everything was inters, and at the last minute again, when we saw the footage of the cars going out and not sliding too much, we reverted everything to slicks and it went fine.

"We had no idea, basically, because when we came back in Q2 in the box it was very hard to keep the car on track with slicks.

"So we were in the garage debating which tyre to go out with, but I just said: 'It's a gamble, boys. It's a gamble to go like Ferrari on inters and then when the rain comes you are a superstar.'

"If it was dry enough, not great.

"We took the risk to wait and to get close to the rain shower coming and to see what people were doing and when we saw Mercedes and Force India into sector one going around and not sliding too much then we decided to go.

"It was the right choice at the time, but it could have gone both ways because you haven't driven for like 10 minutes so you never know."

A great executive decision, as it's turned out, since Haas could be overtaking Renault in the constructors' championship this weekend, with the way things stand.