Haas F1 Team had a disappointing Japanese Grand Prix as they finished outside the points for the sixth time since the Austrian Grand Prix.
It looked promising for the American-led team as Romain Grosjean qualified in seventh and Esteban Gutierrez in tenth on Saturday. This strong performance didn’t continue into the race on Sunday at the Suzuka International Racing Course as neither driver finished inside the top ten.
Both drivers were up and down the grid during the race, with them unable to keep their starting positions after the pit stops played out, although Grosjean was able to recover some of his lost positions to finish eleventh. Gutierrez on the other hand, an incident with the Scuderia Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz Jr forced the Mexican to spin.
Grosjean finished the Grand Prix pressuring Valtteri Bottas in the final laps for tenth but ultimately just missed out on points, but Gutierrez though failed to recover and had to settle for twentieth. Team principal Guenther Steiner says this weekend Haas have seen that their car showed good speed, and despite their results both did show competitiveness during the race.
“Not really the race we wanted today finishing eleventh again with one car and twentieth with the other having started seventh and tenth,” said Steiner. “I think a few things happened today, everyone else had a good race and everybody finished, so nobody dropped out.
“We tried to take the fight to the Williams, but we didn’t manage it in the end. They were able to make a better strategy by starting on tyres they wanted, but that’s racing. This weekend we’ve seen that our car shows speed and we were also competitive in the race. So, we’re able to take that away from here.”
