Guenther Steiner was left disappointed once more as the Haas F1 Team missed out on points for a second consecutive race at the Shanghai International Circuit despite showing strong pace earlier in the weekend.
Both Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean qualified inside the top ten but found themselves outside of the points on Sunday evening as the team once more struggled to get the Pirelli tyres into their optimum temperature window, meaning they fell down the order when it mattered.
Grosjean finished just outside the points in eleventh and was challenging Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon for the final place inside the top ten in the closing laps only to be delayed as the leaders came through to lap the duo, meaning he missed out by the smallest of margins on his first points of the season.
Magnussen had an even more disappointing afternoon, finishing down in thirteenth as his tyre issues were more pronounced, and Team Principal Steiner insists it is important for the team to identify the causes of their issues so they can come back fighting in the upcoming races, starting with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix later this month.
“Not the race we’d have hoped for,” said Steiner. “It seems that we had a very similar problem to what we had in Bahrain.
“It was déjà vu. So, we need to look into it, and work hard to get this issue sorted. We move on to the next one.”
The team currently sit sixth in the Constructors’ Championship after the opening three races of the season thanks to Magnussen’s sixth place finish in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
