The Haas F1 Team had a disappointing Sunday at the Brazilian Grand Prix after they finished without securing any points.
Drivers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen started seventh and ninth respectively, but dropped down to thirteenth and eleventh respectively by the time the chequered flag dropped.
Despite the lack of points, Frenchman Grosjean said he was pleased to see his fellow countryman, Pierre Gasly, on the podium. The Scuderia Toro Rosso driver had a strong day, and was able to capitalise on incidents for Sebastian Vettel, Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, Alexander Albon and Valtteri Bottas.
“First of all, I’m very happy for Pierre (Gasly), it’s good to see him on the podium. I’m very happy for him. I was the last Frenchman on the podium four years ago,” he said.
He added that he considered there result was simply bad luck, feeling that they could have done better than seventh place at the start, which wasn’t helped by a badly timed Safety Car.
“We were doing the race of our life, we were hanging on in there in P7 with a car that doesn’t deserve that. We were doing an amazing job and then the safety car fell at exactly the wrong time for us.
“We pushed the car to the limit today, it just wasn’t our time.”
Contact with Ricciardo Affects Magnussen
Grosjean’s Danish team-mate Magnussen also believes things could have gone better for the team, with his race compromised early by a spin at turn four, which came as a result of contact with Renault F1 Team‘s Daniel Ricciardo that earned the Australian a penalty.
He said: “It’s a shame, this feels like a missed opportunity for the team today – it just didn’t go our way. I got turned around at the beginning of the race and lost a lot of positions, I then had damage on the front wing.
He added that he was disheartened to finish just outside the points.
“At the safety car later, everyone else was just a lot stronger than us at the restart, I just didn’t have enough to hang onto it. I got passed and ultimately missed out on the points by just one place – which doesn’t feel good.”
Steiner Rues Another Pointless Day
Team principal Guenther Steiner was discouraged at the result, believing they could have achieved more.
“Obviously it was a disappointing race, we had hoped for more, and it had looked like we might get it. Kevin (Magnussen) was spun out by Ricciardo, so his race was basically over, it put him back a lot. Romain (Grosjean) was doing a good job and our plan was to do a one-stop race,” he said.
“On the restart we had an MGU-K issue and he was overtaken by a lot of people. From there onwards it was just going backwards. Unfortunately, we started in the top ten but ended up outside of the top ten.”
Steiner was aware they are struggling with the performance of the car, but is confident they will be able to come back stronger next year.
“We know we’re in a difficult position with the car. There’s one more race to go, then hopefully we can come back stronger next year.”
