Haas F1 Team Principal Günther Steiner praised the team for a “fantastic” effort at the United States Grand Prix, as Kevin Magnussen was able to bring home points after pulling off a risky one-stop strategy at Circuit of the Americas.
“After two difficult days, a good result. The whole team did a fantastic job, you cannot ask for more as the car was fast and Kevin was sure he could get to the end with his tires. I wouldn’t say we took a gamble, we took a chance, but we had a back-up strategy to go onto the soft tires and we brought home some points.”
Steiner was displeased that drivers such as Fernando Alonso were not given a black and orange flag to return to the pits for repair after sustaining damage. Alonso was, however, given a thirty second post-race time penalty after the concern was brought to the FIA. A hearing will take place on Thursday to determine the validity of the penalty, which may once again shift points earnings.
“I’m not really happy about what happened out there with the other cars that are losing bits and pieces and don’t get called in like we normally do, so we will follow-up on that one.”
Finishing in fourteenth after Alonso’s penalty was applied, Mick Schumacher had solid pace up until he picked up debris from an incident later in the race, which saw him lose considerable downforce. Steiner said that it seemed that the diffuser sustained damage, which kept him from pulling the same times on fresh tyres in the race’s final stages.
“Mick had very good pace on his first stint, doing a fantastic job and then when the accident happened he must’ve picked up some debris and lost some downforce. We haven’t seen the car yet but I guess the diffuser has got some damage and he just couldn’t do the same times with the new set of tires.”
Overall, Steiner was happy to have scored points at the team’s home race and first weekend with MoneyGram as part of the team.
“Having MoneyGram as our sponsor for the first event, our home race, we are very happy to give them that result – it’s a team effort.”
