Romain Grosjean says he is not too concerned about the reliability issues Haas suffered at the Australian Grand Prix due to the good pace the team displayed during the weekend.
Grosjean claimed an impressive sixth on the grid in qualifying but retired just 13 laps into the race with a water leak. Teammate Kevin Magnussen had an opening-lap clash with Marcus Ericsson before suffering a race-ending tyre puncture in the closing stages.
Despite leaving Melbourne empty-handed Grosjean is encouraged by the overall performance of the VF17.
"The car felt good to drive from the first lap," Grosjean said. "We made some setup changes and things reacted pretty well, so that was very positive from the weekend. I felt comfortable all weekend long in the car.
"It's a shame we did not finish the race, but things are good and we keep our fingers crossed that she'll be as good in China as she was in Australia."
Grosjean thinks reliability is less of a worry because it is more easy to solve than a significant performance deficit.
"It's always good to have a fast car, one that's maybe not 100 percent reliable, over a slow car that is reliable. I wouldn't have much fun finishing the grand prix in 15th, but if I'm always fighting in the top-10 and having some good results, sometimes having an issue at the beginning of the year is not a huge deal.
"We've got the performance, which is what we want. Of course, it's not ideal not to finish the race -- that's not what we want. But again, if the car is fast, we can aim for some good points and the reliability is something we know we can fix."
Magnussen agreed, saying: "The most important thing is to finish the race, otherwise you get nothing out of anything. It's still very encouraging when you see the car is fast. I'd rather have to sort out reliability than sort out an underperforming car. Performance-wise, it's there. We just need to make it run."