Haas’s best-ever finish in yesterday’s Austrian Grand Prix was “redemption” for the Formula 1 team after its difficult start to 2018, says team principal Guenther Steiner.
Romain Grosjean’s fourth place is highest position Haas has finished in so far. Team mate Kevin Magnussen ensured the team claimed its largest points haul so far by following him in fifth.
“I think it’s a redemption,” Steiner told media including RaceFans. “We got back because everybody was ‘oh the team must be demoralised’, they never were. I always said everybody knows the potential of the car. If you know the potential then it will come if you work hard but it came.“This is fantastic, [in our] 50th race, to finish fourth and fifth. For the guys, you can imagine how happy they are, both cars in the points. Romain scored for the first time this year and heavy points not just a few. It’s just a very successful weekend.”
However Steiner admitted the team needed three of the fastest cars to retire in order to finish as high as they did.
“We were lucky this time, by three dropping out in front of us, to finish fourth and fifth. But the car showed it was best of the rest today, quite dominating that position.”
“Everybody executed very good the whole weekend,” Steiner added. “We didn’t have issues.
“This was a good weekend. Not just a good race or a lucky race, this was a weekend with good execution and the luck was the three in front of us dropped out otherwise we would have finished seventh and eighth.”
Grosjean scored his first points of the season after a troubled start to 2018 due to a mixture of misfortune and mistakes.
“Sure, he was close a few times,” said Steiner. “It always slipped away.”
“We always said we gave him our confidence, he’d be good for us for a long time, and we knew that he would come back to be the Romain he was last year. I hope this triggers an event with lots and lots of points for Haas F1.”
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Nunu
2nd July 2018, 13:26
Nice to see GRO is back.. but impressed by MAGs level this season – outstanding
Bridge Wilson (@gwbridge)
2nd July 2018, 14:55
Nice to see things fall their way, for a change. Gene loves it when a plan comes together. Now, let’s see if they can execute like this consistently and be able to capitalize on mistakes and problems among the front runners. And points scored this year mean extra cash in 2019.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
3rd July 2018, 12:33
They had Romain ‘Murdock’ Grosjean as a pilot… :D
Dane
2nd July 2018, 15:06
Great to see them have a little luck come their way. Kmag has become a reliable pair of hands as well, less aggressive & less ball sucking requests.
Louis
2nd July 2018, 17:12
I watched Kmag’s drive on the first two laps when he was in deep traffic with lots of car around trying to pass him, he always left space for the other cars at the corners, that’s a sign of being more cautious and respectful to other drivers. He was being aggressive and careful at the same time. Good job.
Palle (@palle)
2nd July 2018, 18:55
@Dane – it was entertaining, though – the Balls sucking call:-)
Austria is a special track, probably Haas will have more problems over the rest of the season, but it is nice to see tight battles for domination both in the top and midfield. With Grosjean having recovered a lot of self confidence hopefully the pair will push eachother to even better levels, without risky driving between them.
Loren
2nd July 2018, 23:20
Great result! Would love to see Kubica in a HAAS seat next year!
Drittfiske
3rd July 2018, 4:37
If HAM, BOT, RIC hasn’t retired it would have been 7th and 8th, possibly 8th and 9th if HUL had finished. Not so impressive, but they’re still doing a great job.
Lasse
3rd July 2018, 7:56
Best of the rest is, if not impressive, good enough for any of the midfield teams and pretty much what they can hope for. It does not matter how many of the top team drivers retire. To have a Renault retire is not really that surprising – it happens. Magnussen held off both Force Indias and even managed to shave a lot of Grosjeans lead. Had they ended 7-8 their performance would still be the same, now they just got a lot more points for it.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
3rd July 2018, 9:19
Hass was easily the 4th best car. And Grosjean outqualified Ricciardo. Ricciardo will likely have got that place, but 7th and 8th will have been more likely. Given Grosjean qualified within 0.052 off Verstappen and Renault were way off. Sainz was nearly a full second and Hulkenberg over a second. This makes it look even more likely that Hulk won’t have beaten them.