Haas F1 team boss Guenther Steiner has claimed Romain Grosjean’s crash during the Azerbaijan GP was so bad not even a rookie could be excused for doing it.
The Frenchman slid into the barrier while trying to warm up his tyres behind the Safety Car during last Sunday’s race in Baku, eliminating him from sixth place which was one position behind eventual podium sitter Sergio Perez.
In an attempt to save his blushes, Grosjean claimed he accidentally changed a switch which altered the brake balance and led to the incident, but not many believe that instead, thinking he simply lost control with cold tyres.
Either way, to see another strong chance for points disappear in such fashion certainly didn’t sit well with his team boss.
“You don’t expect from a rookie or anybody,” Steiner claimed. “In the race we saw we started last and were P8 with Romain behind Perez. That was on speed because everybody had one stop so there was nothing.
“Sure the Safety Car comes out and we are in P6 all of a sudden but then we go home with nothing.”
His teammate Kevin Magnussen also failed to score having been penalised for pushing Pierre Gasly almost into the wall at around 190mph twice at the first Safety Car restart.
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All in all, it continues the American team’s disappointing start of only having 11 points from four races while looking like genuine top 10 contenders throughout.
“I think we are not using the potential of the car to get in the points. We should be quite well up there because the car is performing very well,” Steiner said.
“In the position like we are in we have got a good team, everything is good, we just need to get it together for one weekend, execute it well over the whole weekend and we will be fine.
“Just at the moment, it feels like we always let it slip. Then you always feel like you are running out of time but then again it’s only race four. I’m not saying its fantastic, we should have done better.”
