Günther Steiner looked back on the Singapore weekend and his team’s performance. The Haas F1 director is pleased with what his team showed in the 17th race of the year, and insists on the operational success and the good decisions taken by the team.
“The whole race weekend, I think it was one of the best, or best, weekends run this year,” Steiner said. « From Friday we had no problems because we knew we had to stay on the ground to give the drivers laps so they could learn the track. »
« On Saturday, with the changing conditions, we couldn’t have done anything different or better. It was the same for tire choice and strategy on Sunday. Going back, we would be doing the same thing, the only one thing we would change is to bring Mick in a lap later. »
“Because now we know there would have been a safety car but of course we didn’t know that at the time. It was very good and it gives us confidence that we can handle difficult weather situations. »
Steiner ‘pissed off’ by Magnussen’s broken wing
For the third time this season, Kevin Magnussen found himself with a damaged mustache, the left vertical fin being broken after an optimistic attack from Max Verstappen. The fact that the Dane had to stop to change it when he was not responsible for the collision annoyed Steiner.
« When something like this happens in racing it’s very frustrating and obviously I’m very upset about it because first of all we put ourselves in this position and then the FIA put us in an even worse position. , having to come and change a part that is not a safety problem. »
« If I wasn’t frustrated about it, I shouldn’t be sitting here, in my opinion. I care about the team and there were two cases that went against us. One inflicted by us themselves and the other by someone outside, which was completely unfair. »
« As for how we recover, we just have to rethink what we can do better next time. I think we shouldn’t have put ourselves in this position, but time heals all the injuries and we will be ready for Japan. »
Seventh place as a team goal
Aston Martin F1 has overtaken Haas in the constructors’ standings, but Steiner is confident his team can reclaim seventh place in this fight against Aston and AlphaTauri.
« I think if we can do a good job, all of us, we can still fight for seventh place. We were in position to score points in Singapore, we just screwed it up. »
« We have to look at ourselves and see what happened and then improve from there. I think in the races to come our car is no worse than the others we are competing against. »
And to confirm that he is looking forward to being in Japan this weekend: « For me it’s one of my favorite circuits because it’s a cool circuit and the fans are very passionate about this circuit. I think our car should be good, we just have to be up to it in the execution. I think it’s very good that we’re going back to Japan, I really like it. »
