There is debate as to whether it was Ron Dennis or Rick Mears who first coined the phrase; 'to finish first, first you have to finish' or 'to finish first, you must first finish'.

Either way, over the years it has become one of motorsport's mantras.

In the wake of his team's maiden test, a test that saw the American outfit deliver respectable results in terms of pace and miles completed, Gene Haas admits that reliability is the key.

"Reliability is number one... to finish races," he told the official F1 website. "I was talking to one of the race strategists and he told me that the drop-out rate in Australia is usually immense, that one time only eleven cars finished the race. So if you can finish you are almost top 10 - finishing the race could get you into the points.

"We will take advantage of the statistics," he continues. "The big teams want to win races so are more prone to take chances that might not come out well in the end. So there are two different strategies: we want to finish races first and foremost, and then let's see about any points. And, as I now know, Melbourne is a good place for that."

Asked what went through his mind as Romain Grosjean put the car through its paces for the first time, Haas admits: "Something pretty profane.

"'It's about time!'," he continues. We have been talking about this for five years.

"The emotions were: 'It took us a long time to get here'. But now that it is here it's: 'Now let's hope it won't backfire!'," he admits. "As the first day moved on it was really exciting to see how well the team did. These are very complicated cars and I was really happy seeing things going a lot better than I had expected."

Asked if he is satisfied with the process of how the team came into being, he replies: "Actually, because we have taken more time than usual we were able to take advantages of situations and windows of opportunities. It all worked to our benefit.

"If you do something complicated like F1 in a rush, you are probably forced to do things that are not as good as they could be. So in the way Haas F1 came into being, we are really fortunate having got to this point we are now."

But is there anything he would have done differently?

"You never go back in time in real life!" he responds. "I would not have changed anything, and that is pretty satisfying."

Asked about how spending on his F1 compares with his highly successful NASCAR team, the answer is somewhat surprising.

"The cost of both teams is almost equal," he says. "Okay, we are running four cars in NASCAR and only two cars here, but F1 is a global championship so running two F1 cars makes up as much as my NASCAR team.

Asked if he has brought anything from his NASCAR team to F1, he laughs and replies: "It brought me!

"Yes, indeed," he continues, "we've brought some people over - and some titbits and a bit of software and yes, probably in some ways how we go about things. But I can't think of anything major. We don't have any preconceived notion of how F1 works so we are going to do what we are comfortable with.

"Probably our philosophy is pretty different to your normal F1 team. We want to purchase as much as we can instead of engineer it - like we do in NASCAR. Formula One teams seem to be very fundamental in saying: 'Oh, we are going to produce everything ourselves.' To us, in NASCAR we don't do that! We buy everything we can - and that is very natural to us, so maybe we are bringing this over here.

"It's probably ingrained in their way of doing things," he continues. "We never had that. We want to race cars and not get too much involved with production. I do respect the F1 guys, but ultimately when you come to a race I don't think people know the difference between a self-produced transmission and a purchased transmission. I don't think that they care."

And how do F1 and NASCAR drivers compare?

"The biggest difference is that F1 drivers are pretty young compared to NASCAR drivers," he admits. "They also seem to be fairly enthusiastic about what they are doing. NASCAR drivers are probably a bit more mature about the business. I think it is harder to drive a NASCAR car than an F1 car: they are bigger, heavier and have far less downforce - so the skills required are completely different. But I think the F1 car requires better reflexes because everything happens so quickly."

Intriguingly, asked if success for his team might encourage other teams to enter, Haas' response suggests that it might actually encourage the bigger teams to create B-teams, something that the American outfit has always denied, in terms of its relationship with Ferrari.

"If we are successful my guess is that people will imitate us," he says. "Probably some bigger teams do want to have a smaller team. You are only allowed to run two cars and having two more cars that you are associated with - maybe that gives them some sort of advantage. Maybe that would be good for the sport. Maybe what will happen with us as role model is that probably one side will be laughing and the other side crying. So let's wait and see."