Steiner: driver style contributing to braking issues

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Haas F1 team principal Gunether Steiner has said that the different driving styles of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen are among the contributing factors behind the team's ongoing struggles with braking.

Romain Grosjean had a rotten time of it in Baku, suffering from lock-ups and run-ons throughout the Azerbaijan Grand Prix race weekend. He ended the race in 13th place, a lap down, and left the paddock without speaking with the media.

By contrast his team mate Kevin Magnussen seemed relatively unaffected by the issues. He went on to cross the line in seventh place, picking up the team's best result of the season so far.

"It’s not that Kevin didn’t have the problems with the brakes," Steiner insisted. "With his driving style, for him it’s easier to drive around it or make it less evident.

"He was not happy with the brakes in FP2. For the race, he had to lift and coast, as well, because we had some issues.

"With Romain’s driving style, the brakes need to be perfect, or as close to perfect as can be. At the moment, we are not there."

Steiner added that the two Haas VF-17 cars were pretty much the same when it came to the race.

“The cars as a set-up - suspension-wise and aero-wise - are pretty similar all the time.

Magnussen lands Haas' best result of 2017 so far

"In the end the cars are not far apart. The drivers work with their race engineer, but the cars, in principle, are very similar.

"But their driving styles – how they go into a corner – that’s a little bit different.

Magnussen's success in Baku means that the team has moved up to seventh place in the constructors championship ahead of Renault, Sauber and McLaren. But closing the gap to Toro Rosso remains a tall order for the squad.

"The game has become more difficult," Steiner admitted. "The midfield is much more compact this year. Therefore, it’s difficult to get in the points.

"We’ve got more points-scoring races, but less points. It is tough, but I think we’ve shown we’ve made progress as a team and that we are more consistent.

"You just need to give yourself time to fix problems and keep on growing. As long as we’re showing improvement, I think we’re doing well."

"We want to be a player, we want to be successful, but we also know our limitations. All in all, we’ve done a good job."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.