Haas’ Guenther Steiner: “We just couldn’t get the tyres to stay alive” in Spain

Guenther Steiner admitted the result of the Spanish Grand Prix was ‘disappointing’ for the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team, with neither Nico Hülkenberg nor Kevin Magnussen finishing inside the points.

Hopes had been high heading into race day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya that the team could add to the eight points they had scored in the opening six races, especially with Hülkenberg starting seventh after an impressive display in Qualifying.

However, heavy tyre degradation on both cars meant they were forced to pit three times during the race compared to two for many of their rivals, which left them down in fifteenth and eighteenth at the chequered flag.

Steiner, the Team Principal at Haas, says it is important the team analyse what happened with its tyre wear in Spain and come back with a solution to those problems if they want to be contenders for points in upcoming events.

“Quite a disappointing result today, we just couldn’t get the tyres to stay alive,” said Steiner.  “We did one more pit stop than everyone else, but even if we hadn’t stopped, we would’ve gone slower and ended up there anyway.

“We need to go back to the drawing board and try to find a solution to our tyre degradation.”

Steiners thoughts were echoed by Hülkenberg, who said that although the one lap pace was good, he would prefer to have the pace on a Sunday.

“I’d rather have it the other way around,” said Hülkenberg to Motorsport.com when asked about the qualifying pace compared to their race pace. ”But, that’s the trend and the characteristic we see so far this year, and we need to try and balance it more between Saturday and Sunday.

“Because obviously whilst it’s nice to bang out a nice quali it always then raises expectations, and you get a downer on Sunday which is not so easy to cope with and to explain to people all the time. So some work for the longer-term future, I think.”