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Romain Grosjean has described qualifying on the back row of the grid as "unacceptable" for the Haas Formula 1 team amid more car problems.

The Franco-Swiss driver has been unhappy with the feel of his car after an "OK" run in Friday morning's first free practice session and was 21st on the grid ahead only of Renault driver Jolyon Palmer, who missed qualifying.

Grosjean, who lapped 0.515s slower than 17th-placed team-mate Esteban Gutierrez, is now seeking answers for why the car was so bad.

"Last on the grid is not acceptable for us," said Grosjean.

"The top speed has been fine, but there's no grip and no balance.

"We started with a decent setup [in FP1] and the car felt OK but then from FP2 onwards, nothing went as expected.

"We are investigating a few things on the car and hopefully we will find something.

"I am still half-a-second behind [Gutierrez] and if he was one-and-a-half tenths faster he would be P14.

"I was a bit quicker yesterday, so I was hoping to be a bit quicker today.

"But something is not going right."

Haas team principal Gunther Steiner has not ruled out Grosjean starting from the pits should something need to be changed on the car under parc ferme conditions.

But with many teams struggling to get the best out of the tyres in unusual track conditions, Steiner refused to blame the team's inexperience for its struggles.

"We are discussing at the moment and we will not decide in the next 10 minutes," said Steiner of the possibility of a pitlane start.

"This is our worst weekend for Friday and Saturday, ending up like this, but we just struggled making the tyre work here.

"Everyone struggles, but we struggled more than the others.

"We will always be the newest team, so we don't want to use that as an excuse, we just need to do better."

GUTIERREZ SPIN DIDN'T COST GROSJEAN

Grosjean did have to avoid spinning team-mate Gutierrez on his final lap in Q1, but this did not cost him.

He had already lapped over two seconds off his personal best in the first sector and was not attempting a quick lap.

"No, I was on a [battery] charge lap," he said when asked if this cost him anything.

"I had done my best and there was no way I could have been faster than what I did."

Gutierrez admitted his spin in the Esses was the result of pushing too hard and he did not have a chance to reach Q2 without the error.

"I was pushing over the limit like crazy, like 'we have nothing to lose'," said Gutierrez.

"It's good to know that you finished qualifying and gave it everything."