After the official dismissal of his two drivers, Gunther Steiner, the boss of the Haas F1 Team, was keen to clarify the situation, particularly with the case of Romain Grosjean.
He declared in the media, that in view of the performances of the Frenchman, the Frenchman shouldn’t be surprised by the turn of events.
“I am surprised that he is still surprised by my decision.” blurts Steiner during interviews in Portugal yesterday,
“He is surprised, but he must have expected it for a long time.
“We had to make a change and it was the right time to do it and not in 2022 with the new regulations.
“We need to invest our finances to develop our car for 2022 and what better way to do that than to have cheaper drivers with the ability to bring in sponsors.” reasons the Haas F1 team principal.
Despite being ousted from the team at the end of the season, Steiner urged his drivers to motivate themselves to achieve the best possible results instead of focusing on the end of their contract.
“I think it’s in their interest that they both get motivated if they still want to have a future in Formula One.” warns the German team boss,
“Ends of contract happen all the time in life and not only in sport. I don’t think they were planning to stay with us for the rest of their lives.
“We are in a bad situation right now. I know it will get better, but in the meantime they have to keep motivating each other to help us get out of it.”
For his part, Romain Grosjean, after a catastrophic weekend in Portugal, did not hesitate to make some revelations about the lack of involvement of his team in the development of the VF-20 this year. As usual, the Frenchman points the finger at the team saying:
“We really have the slowest car in the paddock.
“Maybe I can manage to find a tenth, but no more. There is nothing else to get with this car.
“Since the beginning of the year, we have had constant overheating problems with the rear suspensions and no solution has been found.
“This weekend this problem was for some unexplained reason, even more exaggerated. We were in great difficulty because the car never behaved the same from one lap to the next.
“We really have to find something to correct this and above all not to be last in qualifying.”
Grosjean returns to partner Alonso?
While he will leave Haas at the end of the season, Romain Grosjean is now looking for a new seat for next season, and he confessed that he is in discussions, including a Formula 1 team.
After five years of good and loyal service, Romain Grosjean has not been extended by Haas for next season, and will be looking to find a…. READ MORE ON THIS STORY
The generally accepted rational for signing both Grosjean and Magnusson to one-year contracts for 2020 was that Haas was considering selling the team and it was unlikely any other driver / s would sign for one-year, and that would be easier for the new owners to select their own drivers, rather than having to keep them or pay a lot to buy them out. Both Grosjean and Magnusson would be pretty stupid if they couldn’t figure that out. While I like the Haas team for trying – it’s pretty clear that, especially with the loss of team revenue from the corona virus, that the model of outsourcing as much as possible, doesn’t work in F1. Trying to run an F1 team on pay drivers hasn’t worked in the past and I doubt will work in the future for Haas. I’ll bet if Haas got a good offer for the team he’d sell.
Mag was on contract for 2020, Gro had a 1 year deal
Lauda was a paid driver. If the car is so bad and there is very little chance that it would improve next year, why drive it. Do something else. He has been in F1 for a long time and no big team wants him. It is time to go. If Ferrari is performing poorly what can you expect from a budget clone of a bad car. Ferrari wants to improve the rear end so the issue with the car is not Haas but Ferrari.