Haas team principal Guenther Steiner dismisses speculation about Romain Grosjean’s future at Haas following the driver’s second crash in as many races.
Grosjean spun into a wall during a Safety Car period in Baku, then triggered a first-lap crash which eliminated two other drivers on the opening lap in Spain.
However Steiner insists reports Grosjean could lose his seat are wide of the mark.“I don’t know where the rumours came from so there are no rumours,” he said. “That is the easiest way to stop them.
“We didn’t even speak about that. Somebody’s having two bad races, there’s no point to start rumours or to start to do things about it. The only thing [that] we need to do is to get Romain back to where he is capable of competing, which we all know.
“He’s a very capable guy, he had two bad races. I’m not a person where if someone is on his knees, I try to kick him. That’s unfair. For sure he knows better than all of us what not to do, not to do another Baku or Barcelona.
“But can it happen again? Yes, it could. It’s Monte-Carlo. Just to stop the rumours, there was never talk about that. I don’t know where they came from or whoever brought them up. I’m not trying to say anything wrong. I think I saw it in one thing but I never spoke with anybody about a rumour.”
Steiner said he spoke to Grosjean soon after his crash in Spain to reassure him.
“During the race I came off [the pit wall] and went to speak with him. I know how you feel when something like this happens. We all have bad moments in our life and our careers and how you feel, and I said to him he’ll just get over it. It happens, there’s no point to dwell on it.”
“We need to be positive about it,” Steiner added. “We know what we can do, we know how good he is in Monte-Carlo or how he can be in Monte-Carlo. That is what we are focusing on from here.”
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Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
24th May 2018, 2:04
What a shame that would be; keeping Grosjean in f1. Haas f1 worst driver pairing, williams in on the f1-AM category.
Jackson
24th May 2018, 2:17
Agreed amazes the F1 world why this crash test dummy has not been sacked
Flarg
24th May 2018, 5:54
Shame when Kubica could out drive any of those four drivers!
Gary
24th May 2018, 9:33
“Grosjean’s seat not in jeopardy”
No, but Grosjean’s and every other driver’s life are in jeopardy due to this clown’s presence on the grid.
Bob C.
24th May 2018, 9:41
Dear Mr. Steiner
Should you some day get tired of running an F1 team, would you consider becoming dean at the software engineering department of a certain shall-not-be-named technical university somewhere in Scandinavia?
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
24th May 2018, 9:59
I think people are being harsh on Grosjean. If Verstappen had been in Grosjean’s hass and performed like he has done this year, I’m not sure if he’d have any points either. Grosjean was very up and down last year. He had several great drives and several poor ones. But I overall think he’s good enough to stay in the sport. His first race this season didn’t look bad and he was right behind Magnussen who got DOTW. While we don’t know if Grosjean will continue like this, over the past few seasons, he usually does make up for his bad races with good ones. At this moment in time, I don’t know why we are so heavily against Grosjean compared to Verstappen. Verstappen is driving for a top team and considering that, his performance this year has been shocking. But he has made up for some of it by a podium. But who knows, Grosjean may well have been 5th or 6th which is decent for a Hass in Australia if it wasn’t for his team.
Kelvin (@kelvin38)
24th May 2018, 10:38
Thankfully F1 teams are not run by internet comments.
I hope to see Kmag and Grosjean taking home Double Points in this season.
Also I would like to see the power ratio between the 2. As of now Magnussen seems to be destroying Grosjean, but they have yet to be matched against each other on fair odds.
The Sofa team managers are a hard crowd to please though, but the only see the execution on raceday, not all of the other work that the drivers put into Formula 1. Its easy to judge from just one parameter.
Aleš Norský (@gpfacts)
24th May 2018, 11:05
Well, usually in F1 such statements mean the exact opposite of reality…