Although Haas finished ahead of McLaren last season, and ended up just 10 points adrift of Renault, Grosjean knows that some big-money opposition from last year is expected to move out of reach this time around.

Grosjean accepts that Haas may not be able to keep up with the likes of McLaren and Renault, but he thinks there is still plenty for the team to target, as he suggests Toro Rosso and Williams could be in reach.

When asked by Motorsport.com if he expected things to be harder for Haas in 2018, he said: "I don't know. Some teams are going to have maybe a less powerful power unit, so one goes up and one goes down. I think we don't want to go down in the order.

"McLaren is going to be super strong. They have a huge resource, they have the biggest factory in F1, and the Renault engine is a decent engine.

"They have had reliability issues but power wise they are up there, Renault is on a high too, and they have been developing pretty well so they should be up there as well.

"The question is Williams and Force India. Of course McLaren is going to be there with Red Bull and then it will be Renault, but the question is Williams, Force India, ourselves and Toro Rosso with the new power unit."

Grosjean believes that the key to Haas making a good step in 2018 is to get more on top of its aerodynamic development programme, after feeling that it did not make sufficient gains in this area last year.

"The best is to focus on our own work and we know where we can improve," he said. "There are a few areas where we need to focus on and get better.

"One is making sure that the updates when they are coming are working well and they have been validated before, so not losing three months of time to bring something that doesn't bring what it was supposed to do.

"I am not going to go through everything because it is confidential but that is just an example."

He added: "This is two years in a row where the trend is to go a bit down during the year. We started twice with a very, very good platform and we have been struggling with the tyres.

"We are not up there with tyre usage and understanding. Behind the scenes there are a lot of things we can coordinate better between the factory in Maranello, the one in Dallara and the one in England to make things run smoother and more efficient."