Guenther Steiner was pleased that Haas F1 drivers worked together in Styrian GP as he reckons the tyre worries has lessened from 2019 season.
While they were out of the TV view in F1 Styrian GP but the Haas duo were involved not only in the battle of their own but also against Alfa Romeo Racing drivers. Despite starting from the pitlane, Romain Grosjean caught the field when safety car was deployed.
Teammate Kevin Magnussen was already fighting for a place in the Top 10. Like McLaren and Alfa Romeo, Haas utilised team orders as well, with the drivers being asked to swap to get through both Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi to get closer to points.
In the end, they managed to get Giovinazzi but not Raikkonen with Magnussen finishing 12th and Grosjean in 13th. The Finn, though, stated that he was saving fuel in the latter part of the grand prix and so he himself couldn’t challenge Daniil Kvyat.
For Steiner, it was still a ‘victory’ of sorts as he finally had his drivers working together. “It was about time [they worked together],” he said. “It took a few years too long, and a few crashes too many, so they were well behaved. For sure they’re never happy to swap.
“But it’s actually very difficult on pitwall to manage it, because we do not really see what’s going on because you see from the onboard camera, but we don’t know about how much they push and how much they don’t push.
“But if you have got two very good drivers and two similarly matched cars, it’s always difficult because the guy in slipstream on these long straights will always catch up, so if you swap too much, you lose too much time to the opposition waste time between us.
“So it isn’t easy for us to make the calls. But at least they well behaved. We didn’t get too many arguments. Hopefully it stays like this,” summed up Steiner. In overall sense, not only Haas chief but both Grosjean and Magnussen were more positive with the car.
Unlike last year when they just did not have any pace, this year, they thought they could fight their immediate rivals, even though, they agree that they still need more pace and get the brakes sorted. The bigger change from 2019 they felt was with the tyre behaviour.
Last year, they had troubles especially after a safety car period and or when they are letting by cars for blue flags as the tyres cooled down pretty quickly. But Steiner reckons it is not the case now as they don’t cool down as much that it would take them more laps to get into the right frame.
“I am very positive about the tyres at the moment,” said Steiner. “You can say you can manage the tyres now, if you’re behind a safety car or behind another car. They don’t cool down and then we don’t get them back.
“So that is the most positive thing from last year to this one. Okay, when we are are getting a few blue flags the tyres come back, you know, which is very positive. For last year as soon as a safety car came out our tyres died.”
Here’s Kimi Raikkonen on not pushing
Here’s how the F1 Styrian GP panned out