Haas slam 'rookie' Grosjean crash

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner hit out at Romain Grosjean's "rookie" crash under the safety car at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and says the American squad are beginning to grow concerned at their failure to earn the points their pre-season promise had suggested would be on offer in the opening races of 2018.

Haas ended pre-season testing looking like Formula 1's fourth-best team and their locking-out of the third row in Melbourne led to accusations of cloning Ferrari's car against the rules.

However, a double DNF in Melbourne thanks to faulty pit-stops has been followed by further disappointments - compounded by Grosjean's crash in neutralised conditions in Baku, when he was running sixth.

Grosjean slammed into barriers while weaving to keep his tyres warm and later blamed the incident on an accidental flip of a switch - but Steiner says there was no excuse.

Steiner said: "You don't expect from a rookie or anybody.

Read more: Magnussen clarifies 'I will die' comments
Read more: Mercedes gave up on Hamilton in Baku

"I think we are not using the potential of the car to get in the points. We should be quite well up there because the car is performing very well.

"In the race we saw we started last and were P8 with Romain behind [Sergio] Perez. That was on speed because everybody had one stop so there was nothing.

"Sure, the safety car comes out and we are in P6 all of a sudden but then we go home with nothing.

"You've just got to tell people that you haven't done anything wrong. It's not your fault that Romain went in the wall, we did a good job, we did good pit stops, we prepared the car well.

"The whole weekend, until qualifying started, was very well executed, we had no down time with the car and we did a lot of good things. The guys know themselves if they are good or not.

"Until you get the momentum going assure them they are doing good. They keep on coming back because they are convinced that we can get it done. They are not lacking.

Anguish turns to anger for Romain Grosjean after he crashes behind the Safety Car in Baku ???????????? . #F1 #Formula1 #AzerbaijanGP #Baku #RomainGrosjean #HaasF1 @haasf1team @bakucitycircuit #InstaSport

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1) on Apr 29, 2018 at 10:44am PDT

"In the position like we are in we have got a good team, everything is good, we just need to get it together for one weekend, execute it well over the whole weekend and we will be fine.

"Just at the moment it feels like we always let it slip. Then you always feel like you are running out of time but then again it's only race four. I'm not saying it's fantastic, we should have done better."