Guenther Steiner revealed that Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean spoke after the conclusion of the Spanish Grand Prix to cool the tensions between the duo after a bang of wheels as they battled for seventh position late during Sunday’s race.
Grosjean was running ahead of Magnussen ahead of the safety car period but the Dane attacked the Frenchman soon after the restart heading into turn one, with contact being made that ultimately saw a switch of position.
The Frenchman also lost positions to both Carlos Sainz Jr. and Daniil Kvyat in the following laps as he slipped to tenth, but he held off Alexander Albon until the chequered flag to bring his car home inside the points for the first time in 2019, ensuring a double points result for Haas.
“It’s ended as being a little bit of a controversial weekend, but we’ve sorted it out – cleared the air between the drivers,” said Steiner, the team principal of Haas. “That’s the most important thing after their race.
“We maybe lost a couple of points, but we’re all happy to move forward from here, everything is fine. It’s been a good weekend points-wise, with getting two cars into the points.”
Steiner says the team will be hoping the two-day test this week at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya will unlock some more potential from the VF-19, although he foresees two difficult outings for the team in Monaco and Canada, tracks he does not believe will suit Haas at all.
“Hopefully we can learn a lot from the test here this week, so we can do the same in Monaco and Canada,” said Steiner. “At the moment it looks like they’ll be a little bit more difficult for us, because of the track layouts, but I think we can still score points.
“The whole team did a very good job here this weekend and we come away with double points – happy.”
