Steiner: Four good races don't mean F1 is 'fantastic now'

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Haas boss Guenther Steiner says Formula 1's recent string of thrilling races shouldn't encourage the sport's bosses to relent on their efforts to improve the show.

A processional and dull French Grand Prix won by Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton in June generated damning criticism among F1's fans and pundits who said the event was symptomatic of the sport's core problems.

However, the race was followed by a thrilling Austrian Grand Prix where Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc went wheel-to-wheel to overcome Mercedes' seven-race winning streak.

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Silverstone, Hockenheim and the Hungaroring produced equally exciting races. Despite the last four thrillers, Steiner insists F1 must remain determined to push through changes to improve the action all season long.

"We need to keep the big picture," he stated. "I think the bigger picture is four good ones, but we want 21 or 22 good ones.

"That’s what I’d be trying to focus on, to have them all good and then work towards it," he said.

"Not because we had four good ones we calm down and say ‘It’s good now’; and then we come up and say ‘Oh it’s bad, what do we do now?’ and just be up and down reactive."

"We still need to make it better in general, you know, level playing field, because this can be the most exciting sport in the world, in my opinion, so we never have to forget that," Steiner said.

As far as Steiner is concerned, that means doing something about the overall level of competition within the sport by reducing the gap in spending between the top and the midfield squads.

"We need to keep the big picture in place and for me the big picture is the budget cap, which is coming," the Italian said.

"The first one, as I always say, will not solve all the problems, but this is a step in the right direction.

"And keep on going with it, let the people race more. You know, I am fully for it, and work on that one.

"But not that we can now say that because we had four good races everything is fantastic, because it isn't."

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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.