Romain Grosjean doesn’t believe he and Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen looked “stupid” after their contact at Silverstone.
The two drivers banged wheels through Turn 5 on the opening lap, with the subsequent damage enough for both to retire within a hand full of laps.
On what was already a difficult weekend for Haas, the now-former CEO of title sponsor Rich Energy mocked the team and boss Guenther Steiner was rumoured to want to fire the Frenchman.
“We’re not stupid and we want to avoid contact,” Grosjean told RaceFans.
“We always qualify next to each other so the risk is higher and in the midfield, in the pack, it’s not always easy to position the car where you want.”
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Grosjean then argued that he and Magnussen had been very unlucky to both be eliminated by the rather innocent bump, which made their double retirement even more frustrating.
“There’s a lot of things that could have been different in Silverstone,” he admitted.
“Kevin touched my rear wheel out of turn four, punctured my rear-right tyre. Then I went to turn five obviously on three wheels.
“I pushed him wide but I didn’t know he would be outside either. He punctured again. It’s a double puncture for two small touches.
“Look at [Max] Verstappen, he flew up in the air. I’m sure he had a bit of floor damage but sometimes a small touch creates big things.”