Haas F1 Team Principal Guenther Steiner has once again voiced his unhappiness with the consistency of stewards decision after Romain Grosjean was penalised for the first lap collision with Esteban Ocon in Brazil.
The two Frenchman went side-by-side entering Ferradura with the Force India driver trying to sweep around the outside but his countryman would lose the rear of the car making contact with Ocon’s car and sending both into the run-off area.
The incident marked the 21-year-old’s first retirement in F1 after 27 races and saw Grosjean given a 10-second time penalty plus two penalty points and it was the severity of the punishment which most irritated Steiner when speaking after the race, comparing it to Lance Stroll’s for blocking the former Lotus driver in qualifying in Austin.
“I share my surprise more in the verdict,” he said. “It doesn’t influence our result here, we were done by then and we took it as a test session, nothing else, but he got two penalty points for a racing accident in my opinion.
“Stroll got one penalty point when the speed difference was 140km/h and that was pretty dangerous, it doesn’t get any better by the way, the more I mention it I think it gets worse.”
Romain himself was unhappy he was penalised at all by the stewards, claiming he was the victim of contact too but did apologise to Ocon for what happened.
“Not the race we were hoping for,” he said in a video posted on social media. “I’m sorry for the contact with Esteban, I was touched strongly from behind, I believe I had a puncture from there so I lost the car and he was on the outside.
“It’s to me a racing incident, in my opinion, I’m really struggling to understand the penalty, which was super harsh. It is what it is and we have to move on.”
It is the latest penalty given to him by the stewards after being deemed guilty of going off track and gaining an advantage in a battle with Fernando Alonso in Mexico, to which Steiner claimed the Spaniard only has to complain to get his own way.
He also joined the call for permanent stewards in F1 to improve consistency with the events of Sao Paulo not changing his mind.
“Not as far as I know. It hasn’t shown any progress. So it’s very difficult,” he claimed.
