Romain Grosjean has apologised for making comments calling into question the Haas F1 Team's long-term commitment to remaining in the sport.
In the build-up to Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, Grosjean was asked about his chances of staying with the team beyond the end of the current season.
He replied by talking about "the elephant in the room", which he said was the question of whether Haas itself would still be in F1 in 2021.
That caused consternation within the Haas camp where the matter of the team's long term future is unsurprisingly a highly sensitive issue.
Team principal Guenther Steiner made his displeasure with the Frenchman's comments clear over the weekend, stating that Grosjean's answer "was the wrong answer" in the circumstances.
And now Grosjean has apologised for his original remarks and walked back his original comments about the team's prospects.
“I’m sorry if I said anything wrong,” he told Motorsport.com after the race. “I said something that I shouldn’t have said.
“I didn’t want to create anything," he added. "You know I’m sorry for the team. And all good.”
He added that the internal drama surrounding his original comments wasn't going to end up as one of the centre pieces in the next series of Netflix's Drive to Survive behind-the-scenes documentary series.
"There’s no Netflix episodes, there is no problem," he insisted.
For his part, Steiner said he had been amazed when he had first heard about Grosjean's "elephant in the room" comments but added that he had never actually been angry about them.
©Haas
"I was never upset about it,” he said. “You know me, I react to something and I get over things pretty quick.
"I’m not upset, it was just like - I was amazed when I read it, because I wasn’t there obviously," he added. “So I asked, but I’m fine with him. I have no problem.
“I think he realised [that] it was a tough question and he answered in a way, maybe, after thinking he didn’t want to answer. He didn’t maybe mean what he said, you know. I have no problem.
"If I get anybody mad if I say something not appropriate, I would have everybody mad at me! But I get over things pretty quick."
Steiner was also feeling more upbeat after the race in which Kevin Magnussen scored the team's first championship point of the season thanks to the decision to call in its drivers for a change of tyres before the start - even though they subsequently incurred a penalty in so doing.
“It was a great result for the team," he said. "It’s fantastic, as at the moment we’re not in a position to do this under normal circumstances. The call at the beginning of the race was the decision which made this happen, the guys then just kept it up.
"Kevin did a fantastic job in the race, Romain just had a few issues with the tires. Thanks to the whole team for putting in the hard work and keeping on pushing – they never gave up; we never give up."
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Haas F1 Team, Guenther Steiner, Roman Grosjean
