Esteban Gutierrez admits that despite respecting the decision by the Haas F1 Team to replace him with Kevin Magnussen for 2017 he does not agree with the decision, and believes he should have had another year with the team.
The Mexican joined the new American team for its debut season in 2016 but has yet to score a point, whereas team-mate Romain Grosjean has scored twenty-nine, and Gutierrez believes the failure to break into the top ten was the main reason why Haas dropped him in favour of Magnussen.
Gutierrez’s best finish in 2016 has been eleventh, which he has achieved on five separate occasions, but the former Scuderia Ferrari test driver feels that mechanical issues and mistakes, both from himself and the team, should have been taken into consideration when making the decision on the 2017 driver line-up.
“There were a lot of situations which were not under my control,” admitted Gutierrez on Autosport. “At the end of the day, I respect the decision because it’s their team.
“But on the other hand, it’s not a fair way in general because in the beginning of the season, it wasn’t ideal for me to get a rhythm. As a new team, there were a lot of mechanical problems when the opportunity to score points was there.
“There were a lot of mistakes, yeah there were some mistakes on my side as well, but it was more on the team. I don’t think that was evaluated in the right way. They just looked at the paper and then made a decision. I respect it but I don’t necessarily agree with that.”