Haas team boss Guenther Steiner was unsurprisingly livid as his two drivers took each other out of the British Grand Prix.
Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen went side-by-side through Aintree onto the Wellington Straight on the opening lap, with the bang of wheels enough for both cars to retire.
It rounded off what has been a pretty dismal weekend amid the bizarre situation with title sponsor Rich Energy and continued their ongoing pointless streak, which sits at four races.
“Both of them are in trouble,” he told FormulaSpy. “It’s not acceptable. I was pretty clear after Barcelona what not to do.
“We’re in a difficult enough situation trying to get the car back on track and they’ve got the chance where it seems like our long runs are OK.
“Then they crash into each other at Turn 5, and that’s not acceptable.”
Steiner would give Grosjean and Magnussen a dressing down when they returned to the pits, revealing neither driver had been given a chance to explain themselves.
Romain though would defend himself when speaking to the media.
“It’s difficult to say anything. Something touched my rear wheel and punctured me. That’s in a spot I can’t see, it’s a blind spot,” he claimed.
“I was just doing my corner behind the two Alfas, staying on the racing line, and something touched my right rear tyre.
“When the tyre delaminated, we had a lot of floor damage, a lot, due to the rear puncture. There was damage to the brake duct as well. The downforce loss was too big. I didn’t really feel the contact.”
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More frustratingly, the clash hampered Haas as they look for solutions to their ongoing lack of performance, which saw Grosjean running the same spec as the first race of the year in Australia.
“It’s a shame because we wanted to do a comparison between the two cars over a race. It felt really good going to the grid and I had good hope for the race and obviously that was gone straight away,” he concluded.
