Kevin Magnussen, Romain Grosjean, Haas, Circuit de Catalunya, 2019

Haas collisions will influence 2020 driver choice – Steiner

2019 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Haas team principal Guenther Steiner says his drivers’ collisions this year will influence his choice of line-up for the 2020 F1 season.

Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean have collided in the Spanish, British and German Grands Prix this year. The contact between the pair at Silverstone led to both retiring.

Steiner will meet the pair today to discuss the latest clash between the pair in Germany last week.

“I’m going to sit down with them today and let’s see what is coming out of it, how they see it and what we need to do to go forward in future,” he said. “That’s the only thing I can do. Maybe it ends up that we tell them what to do, we decide who is doing what, when they are getting close to each other.”

“When they are close to each other I think we need to take it out of their control who is doing what,” he added.

Asked whether the string of incidents involving the pair this year will influence the team’s choice of drivers for next year, Steiner said: “Absolutely, yes.”

However he admitted Haas’s choice of drivers will be influenced by who is available

“It’s like every year. Somewhere some domino has to fall and then all the other ones get in place. There is a lot of non-movement at the moment, everyone knows. Who is the first one to move here, and then the other ones will fall in place.

“Maybe nothing moves and then nothing falls in place. But at the moment nobody has moved and until something moves there is a lot of things going on. There’s quite a few drivers out of contract and if they are all confirmed it is very difficult that a lot of things move.”

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17 comments on “Haas collisions will influence 2020 driver choice – Steiner”

  1. Hopefully both seats are empty at this team.

    1. Amen. Steiner should’ve said Haas collisions will influence 2018 driver choices.

  2. He’s threatened to impose serious team orders before and it’s still happening. Drop them both, they won’t get Haas far.

  3. Both are pretty average. Besides Stiener clearly sees Mag as the golden boy and treats Gro as a bit of a joke.

    1. Gro is a joke. Whining constantly, embarassing low speed crashes behind the safety car and in pitlane, donutting into oncoming cars at a race start. He is awful.

  4. Pedro Andrade
    1st August 2019, 14:34

    I would retain Magnussen, he may be brute at times but he is fast and consistent, and you could argue he has a margin of progression. Grosjean on the other hand had more than enough time in F1 and never showed anything particularly special apart from some occasional flashes of brilliance (similar to Trulli, Fisichella and others), and overall seems to be on the decline. Plus, he is constantly complaining about his car and everyone else, which certainly doesn’t help team morale (Magnussen did his fair share of that in Canada, but is not recurrent).

    1. Pedro Andrade, I am not sure that Magnussen is actually that much faster or that much more consistent than Grosjean over the course of a full season.

      In 2017 and 2018, Grosjean ended up outqualifying Magnussen over the course of a season – the results were 12-7 in 2017 and 11-8 in 2018. In terms of single lap pace over a full season, the results from the past couple of years would suggest that Magnussen is the slower of the two.

      Equally, in terms of relative finishing position, Magnussen hasn’t actually shown much progression in that area either. In 2017 and 2018, where both drivers finished the race, it was only 7-6 in Magnussen’s favour in 2017, whilst in 2018 it was tied at 7-7 apiece. The problem for Grosjean was that his stronger form against Magnussen in 2018 came later in the season, when the team were generally less competitive – so although he actually performed reasonably evenly with Magnussen over the season, Magnussen ended up outscoring him mainly because his best performances were early in the season and when Haas were at their most competitive.

      This season does actually share a few similarities, because when you look at where the two drivers have finished relative to each other, Grosjean has actually beaten Magnussen 5-1 in terms of race finishing order this season. Magnussen’s position in the WDC relative to Grosjean is being flattered a bit by the 6th place he got in Australia – again, the race where Haas were arguably at their strongest – whilst, so far this season, he’s otherwise generally finished behind Grosjean.

      Overall, Grosjean and Magnussen have been fairly similar in terms of performance over the course of the season. Magnussen is perhaps just flattered a bit by the fact that he’s tended to be quicker at the start of the season, which is usually when Haas are quickest, but when you look a bit closer, his results suggest he isn’t really any more consistent or faster than Grosjean over a full season.

      1. Daniel Neukirch
        2nd August 2019, 0:41

        Very well put and considered. I don’t normally comment on here, but what you said so easily gets overlooked.

      2. I cheer for Magnussen because I’m a dane. That is pretty basic as I feel represented in a sport that i really enjoy. However, I think Mags inconsistensy argues against him. He should prove to Haas that he can perform in the second half of the season if he wnats to stay at the team. Hell, even stay in F1!
        He is a talented driver with a rare, and sometimes naive winner instinct, but there options for Haas to change the entire driver lineup. I acknowledge, that many drivers don’t see Haas’ way, especially not after the farsical drama with a sponsor, and many of the young drivers are a part of young driver programme with other teams, so even if there are options for Haas, they might have a difficult time to convince drivers to join them. I think they keep the lineup for next season and await the big change for 2021. It is the only thing that makes the most sense for them as team now.

      3. Grosjean is recognized as one of the best qualifiers in the entire field but that is because he races to the margins every time and that makes him inconsistent in races because he relatively often fails to finish due to taking too many risks. Actually it being only 11-8 in Gro favor speaks to a pretty good ability at qualifying from Mag. Most other drivers outside the top 5 would be outclassed more than that at qualifying by Gro.

        That BTW is also why he has been retained so far. But if it’s still enough? Who knows.

  5. Remember who wasn’t invited at that dinner depicted in “Drive to survive”? Guess who will leave the team.

    1. To me, this increasingly sounds like a growing number of F1 fans are basing their world view off a “documentary” series that prioritised story-telling over factuality. Can’t say I’m impressed.

  6. For me, GRO should be as good as gone after that “Ericsson hit us” rádio when crashing by himself. Or when he crashed leaving the pits and said It was “funny”. Blame the tires, blame Ericsson, blame the chassis… But MAG is no piece of cake either, forcing other drivers off the track whenever challenged… In a perfect world, HAAS could have tried to bring in Alexander Rossi and Will Power and maybe would have similar points at this stage :)

    1. Dear Only Facts, how’s living under a rock working for you? Anyway, since you seem to have missed everything that happened since Baku 2018, let me fill you in:
      Grosjean never blamed Ericsson, his race engineer did. They have very different voices and accents, so it’s already baffling that some people failed to recognise that immediately. Even more baffling is the fact that some people still don’t seem to get it despite this silly story having been debunked several zillion times since then. It just goes to show that some people will believe whatever they want, even when the facts clearly contradict them. Ironically, this immunity to facts appears to correlate with a prominent use of the word “facts”. It makes me want to say something witty about Sartre, but I guess I’ll save that one for a worthy opponent.

      1. nase, I suspect that there are probably a few common reasons for why people still claim it was Grosjean who said that, even though it has been repeatedly pointed out that it wasn’t Grosjean.

        For some, it fits into the preconception that some people have of him as being a “moaner”, and, just like the poster you are responding to, they like to refer to it as an example of Grosjean “blaming everything else but himself”.

        Others seem to be inclined to accept the story as true because it fits into their perception that Grosjean is a useless driver who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

        In that respect, it seems quite a few of those who repeat the claim do so because it fits into their view of Grosjean and, as a result, want to believe that he said it.

        1. Sorry, but wrong of you two to use that “you should know better” argument to avoid mentioning GRO’s mistakes. And he is indeed the moaning type. And he is indeed prone to errors. And he cracks under pressure… And he cries like “why that keeps happening to me?”. And am not english, neither I hate the french, mostly I do not hate GRO. Nor MAG, HAM or any other driver. But have my opinion about them, I am not afraid to share that with you. Go hide behind Sartre If you cannot live with that!
          PS: Thanks for the compliment on my username ;)

          1. Involuntary trolls are the worst.

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