For Haas F1 Team it was an exciting Canadian Grand Prix, with Romain Grosjean taking the VF-17 home with 69 laps on one set of tires.
It was a crazy start in Montreal, as Carlos Sainz Jr cut across the nose of Grosjean’s car forcing him to put his right-side tired on the grass. When Grosjean returned to the track, contact with Sainz was made, leading to the Spaniard shooting across Turn 3, collecting the Williams Martini Racing of Felipe Massa. Grosjean had to pit for a new nose wing as well as changing his tires, the team kept the Frenchman on its planned one-stop strategy.
Forcing Grosjean to manage the set of supersofts for the remainder of the 70-lap race, he saw the chequered flag in tenth. On the other side of the garage, Kevin Magnussen had an equally difficult Grand Prix, as he was given a five-second penalty after passing Stoffel Vandoorne during a Virtual Safety Car period. After he returned from serving his penalty, he returned to the race in fifteenth. Magnussen managed to climb up the grid to see the chequered flag in twelfth.
Team Principal Guenther Steiner believes Grosjean did a fantastic job to reach the end of the Grand Prix, normally after a similar incident your race is done, but Grosjean was able to fight back.
“It was a very exciting race for us,” said Steiner. “It didn’t start well with Romain being hit by Sainz at the beginning and dropping down to last after having to come in for a wing change.
“Normally, your race is done then, but everybody kept on fighting and Romain did a fantastic job to get the car home with 69 laps on one set of tires. That’s astonishing – very well done.
“Kevin was up there in the points as well. But then he got a penalty for overtaking under the Virtual Safety Car. He gave the position back, but it was decided he needed to get the penalty.”
Despite the end results not being what the American-led team had imagined, Steiner is pretty happy with the weekend, with them scoring points now in five out of seven races this season.
“All in all, I’m pretty happy with the weekend,” added Steiner. “As much as it looks like we didn’t do what we should be doing.
“We got a point, meaning we’ve scored points now in five out of seven races this year – and in one of those we had a DNF (Did Not Finish). I think if we’re always around there, we can always score points. That’s what we’ll try to do. If the challenge is high, we keep on fighting.”
