Formula 1 team boss didn't opt for Renault's approach: "I don't think it's fair"

Guenther Steiner thinks that last year's ninth place in the constructors' championship in Formula 1 is due to a lack of experience. Furthermore, the team boss of Haas F1 believes that it would not have been fair for Romain Grosjean or Kevin Magnussen to nod out after a mediocre season.

"I think it’s a little bit experience-wise as well. Except me, everybody’s pretty young here! And a lot of the guys are not young in age only, but also in their jobs, in their responsibility", Steiner explains last year's situation at GPRacing. The American team did not intervene in time, which made some Grands Prix desperate. "The experience was missing to have been in this situation before, and our reaction wasn’t correct.

According to the Italian, however, it has nothing to do with the business model of Haas F1. The race stable buys almost the entire car from Ferrari and develops relatively little itself. "That has nothing to do with the (business) model except that we are a new team", Steiner believes. "I think if we’d been more experienced we would have scratched our heads more after the Barcelona upgrade (didn’t work) instead of believing in the good news that the car is quick. We should have reacted more thoroughly and focused on our problem in Barcelona.”

Grosjean and Magnussen failed in 2019, as did the car of Haas F1. The future of the French driver in particular was uncertain with an expiring contract, but Steiner put his hand in his own bosom for the bad year. At Renault they did things exactly differently by pushing Nico Hulkenberg aside, while it was mainly the car that didn't work.

Steiner has no time for new driver

"Changing a driver or drivers is also like giving them some blame as well, which I think isn’t fair. The performance of the car is nothing to do with them," Steiner said in the interview. "Sometimes change is good because you start a new dynamic, but you can start something new and then get lost in that. (And I’ve got) more important things to do. I cannot spend (extra) time with a new driver. I’ve got my hands full already.”