Esteban Gutierrez has revealed that he has apologised to his Haas F1 Team mechanics and engineers following some outbursts earlier this year when things were not going the Mexican’s way.
Gutierrez has appeared to suffer more with mechanical issues than team-mate Romain Grosjean in 2016, with the Frenchman having scored all of the teams’ 28 points so far in their rookie campaign.
The Mexican’s best result of the season has been eleventh, which he has achieved four times, but Gutierrez is happier now he has cleared the air with his team, and knows he has the backing of team principal Guenther Steiner as they aim to score points with both drivers in final nine races of the season.
“There have been a few moments in the season where frustration was very high and I admit that,” said Gutierrez to Autosport. “There have also been a lot of moments of desperation where I had to be a bit aggressive with a few people in the team.
“When you are a driver doing everything you can – preparing yourself in the best way, being very quick, putting everything together from your side – and then you see very basic mistakes from the team side, it’s like ‘What’s going on?’
“But I also have to admit sometimes I was a bit too much on certain occasions. I went and apologised and we’ve become closer and closer and closer as a team.”
“I put the frustration on one side in order to say ‘Let’s be a team and make it right’. They understood. Those things happen and you need to find the best compromise.
“Then more mistakes happened, but it was then about keeping calm and keeping going and going and going. Thankfully I have the support of Gunther [Steiner, team principal], I have the support from the chief engineers and a lot of people on the team.
“We are all doing our best to improve the team, to make it work because it’s a team of two cars and we want to score points with two cars, not only one.”
