Romain Grosjean says the criticisms of Haas' close partnership with Ferrari are based purely out of jealousy at how well the American team has started its debut F1 season.
Grosjean has steered Haas to two remarkable results in its first races, a sixth place in Australia followed by a superb drive to fifth in Bahrain. Haas entered this season with a controversial Ferrari partnership, which includes an engine supply and as many parts allowed under the regulations, as well as extensive use of the Italian team's Maranello facilities last year.
The entrance model has been met with criticism, with Williams technical chief Pat Symonds saying it could "erode" the status of being a constructor team. Grosjean does not understand why people would be against a new team being immediately successful, especially when it is from a big, untapped market such as America.
Asked if those criticisms came from jealousy, Grosjean replied: "100 percent. There are two approaches -- the Claire Williams approach, which is very nice, saying it's very good for Formula One that there's a new team coming, on top of that an American team, and being successful, it opens up the audience, opens it up to a big country, opens ideas up to other people that want to join Formula 1, and I am sure we would love to see 24, 26, 28 cars on the grid, it would be awesome.
"And then there are the people who are just jealous because they haven't achieved what we have done so far. They're just saying 'it's a Ferrari base, it's not the way it should be'. Come on, it's Formula One!"
Grosjean thinks the link with Ferrari is being overplayed by some of Haas' rivals, especially now the season is underway.
Asked how much work the team does with Ferrari, he replied: "No more than I was doing with Mercedes [as a Lotus driver] last year. Everyone likes to say it's a Ferrari base. It's not, it's a completely different philosophy. If you look at the wings, the sidepods, the nose. It's a Haas car. Yes we've got the mechanical parts from Ferrari, which save us a lot of hassle. But the rest is a Haas car."
Speaking about the Ferrari simulator, the Frenchman said: "Esteban went last week. I didn't, because we've got small resources so it's a bit complicated to send the engineers to a simulator and then we lose time at the factory. I think I'll probably go back after Monaco but not before."