Steiner: Podium "possible" but retirements needed

Haas boos Gunther Steiner believes that Haas can score a podium finish in Spain, taking inspiration from Sergio Perez’s brilliant drive last time out in Azerbaijan.

Force India’s Perez produced a memorable performance to take third place in Baku, and with Haas’ obvious pace, there is no reason, given the right circumstances, that one of their drivers could take home a trophy this weekend.

Both drivers are capable of scoring podiums, Romain Grosjean claimed ten during his time with Lotus, while Kevin Magnussen scored a debut podium with McLaren in 2014.

However, Magnussen has shown only glimpses of that form since, and Grosjean is still without a point in 2018.

On the possibility of a podium, Steiner said: “If all the stars line up, then it’s possible, like in Azerbaijan where it did for Sergio Perez and everything lined up for him and he took the opportunity.”

Perez’s podium was due to a fantastic drive, but he was helped by the crash which took out both Red Bulls, plus Valtteri Bottas’ late puncture and Sebastian Vettel’s flat-spotted tyre.

“Something like this needs to come up for us to achieve that,” said Steiner. “Just racing ourselves into a podium will be difficult without other circumstances, like some of the top three team dropping out.”