Romain Grosjean, Haas, Monza, 2018

Haas rival rubbishes ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ claim

2018 Italian Grand Prix

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Claims by Haas team principal Guenther Steiner that Renault broke a “gentlemen’s agreement” by protesting the team at Monza have been rejected by one of their rivals.

Romain Grosjean was disqualified from sixth place at the Italian Grand Prix after the stewards upheld a protest from Renault claiming his car’s floor was illegal. Steiner subsequently claimed F1 teams had agreed to address questions of legality on an informal basis rather than issuing post-race protests.

However Force India technical director Andrew Green said that while the agreement existed, it did not apply in this case as the FIA had specifically informed the team of a clarification in the rules.

“No, they broke the regulations,” said Green. “It was a technical directive from the FIA telling everybody these are the regulations and you need to abide by them by Monza. Plenty of time.

“That’s a completely different scenario from thinking someone’s illegal and then doing a sneaky on them at the end of the race. Which tends not to happen, we tend to talk to the FIA and the FIA will talk to the team and sort it out.

“But when you get a directive from the FIA you follow it otherwise you end up being excluded. That’s what’s happened.That’s not a gentleman’s agreement, that’s what the regulations are there for.”

Force India said they had not considered submitting their own protest against Haas, despite both their cars finishing behind Grosjean at Monza.

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2 comments on “Haas rival rubbishes ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ claim”

  1. Haas should just let it go already. They broke the rules without a doubt, so, therefore, it’s useless for them to still appeal it.

  2. I wonder – if Renault had honoured the gentleman’s agreement and informed Haas that they were going to protest the Haas floor, what would Haas have done?

    a) would they have withdrawn the cars from the GP? If yes, the outcome would have been the same, in that Haas would not have got points
    b) would they have ignored the pre-race warning from Renault? If yes, the same outcome.
    c) would they have taken a hacksaw to the car and fixed the floor? If yes, then why were they pushing the FIA to grant them an extension?

    I like a lot of things Steiner says, but I feel here he’s in the wrong. Unless he’s trying to make some specific point (one that I cannot make out) despite being on what seems to be the losing end of a battle.

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