Steiner cautiously optimistic of Haas Barcelona potential

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner is cautiously optimistic Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen can finish inside the points at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Grosjean and Magnussen finished sixth and ninth in first practice in Barcelona and Steiner is looking back to the 2019 race result as evidence that a strong performance could be on the cards.

“Last year, with the double points-score, having had a bit of a difficult season up until then, it was very good," said Steiner.

In 2019, Magnussen and Grosjean finished seventh and tenth respectively.

Steiner added: “It depends a little bit how we qualify. The race pace I think the only issue now is overheating our tyres but everybody has got that.

“But this track is not as power sensitive as Silverstone for example, so if you can get a decent qualifying, maybe we can get something.

“You always try to do your best at any time and sometimes we are not far away from points.”

Haas scored its only point of the season so far when pitting both cars at the close of the formation lap in Hungary. Benefiting from the drying track and the rest of the field needing to pit under normal race conditions, Steiner has repeatedly stated that his team must make the most of these unpredictable moments in order to score on Sundays.

It is not surprising then, that Steiner was a fan of the unpredictable nature of the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, a race that saw a mix of strategy plays as opposed to the usual one-stop formula.

He said: “I want races where we cannot predict the outcome and I think all the fans like that one and everybody interested in F1, it should be always that it is not too predictable, because if it is too predictable we have a ceremony to go around and then finish like we finished the last race. That’s not interesting.

“It looks like the two stop races, or when we get into tyre wear and stuff like this, they make the racing more interesting so I welcome them and again, some people last week decided to make a one stop race and it worked for them as well.

“It’s just having more than one thing that can change the race result. It’s interesting.”

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