Guenther Steiner says even though Haas didn’t get the decision in their favour but reckons the stewards did pull up the FIA eventually.
It was inevitable for Haas to have its right to review turned down by the FIA as these things rarely get overturned by the governing body. But team boss Steiner feels they still got something out of it rather than going empty handed in that sense.
Of course, they didn’t get the results changed which would have helped them in the standings side, but the stewards did pull up the FIA for not managing the track limits situation that well as they are supposed to do it and not the F1 teams.
There is no regret from Steiner for trying. “Why would I regret it?,” he said to media. “I don’t regret it. Obviously we were conscious that it will be difficult to make it stick but at least we tried. What came out is that the stewards actually said to the FIA that it’s doing a bad job. And I think that’s what was done.
“We didn’t get anything out of it but you have to try in life, you have to fight. You just can’t say, ‘Oh I do nothing’. What they should have done is make sure that they had a CCTV camera on turn six so I don’t have to protest. Lets go that way, that is number one. They should make sure that they’ve got the means in place to check their own regulations, not me sitting at home or Aston Martin checking what they are doing.
“That is not the team’s job. In half an hour, we didn’t have time to go through all that stuff because that is not our job. We are not the governing body, we are a race team, we pay somebody to do this job – the FIA,” summed up Steiner, who also noted that a fair result would have been penalty but it is fine if it wasn’t the case.
Also, Haas played a smart card where they didn’t protest which would have cost them more than right to review. “A fair hearing would be that they would accept the Right to Review and to review it properly, but obviously they didn’t want to go there for obvious reasons,” said Steiner.
“And that’s it, end of story. But as long as we move forward and get better for the future, that’s already a win. And then again, a protest costs you a lot of money, a right of review costs very little. You need to be smart as well. I mean, it’s worth it. I think that’s worth it for whole of F1, not only for us, because everybody agreed with that, but nobody did anything about it. I think we are helping to develop Formula 1 rules,” summed up Steiner.
Here’s Haas on running both specs in Las Vegas
Here’s FIA rejecting Haas petition
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