Haas team boss Guenther Steiner denied that he had publicly castigated Mick Schumacher following another crash by the German in Hungary, and insists he'll always air his grievances internally.
In Hungary, Steiner did go on record to state that his drivers' crashes this season have been "too frequent and too heavy", and the Italian singled out Schumacher who suffered last weekend his third costly encounter of the year with the barriers.
"Mick in the last five races had quite a few big ones. These accidents are quite heavy. It’s a lot of money and for no good reason," said a frustrated Steiner in the wake of the rookie's mishap in FP3.
But Ralf Schumacher, Mick's uncle, shot back at the Haas team principal, whom he said should vent his frustration "internally, not externally".
"If you look at it that way, we might as well go public [with this] – Haas have been lagging behind for three years," added the former Grand Prix driver.
"What is he doing as team boss? You don’t talk about that publicly either."
©Haas
In the wake of Ralf Schumacher's comments, Steiner stood his ground and made clear that he runs his team as he sees fit, regardless of what others may think.
"I do my stuff the way I do it," Steiner told Motorsport.com. "I do things the way I think is right. I didn’t speak badly about Mick at all. I just said it was getting too much.
"There have been a lot of accidents recently. It’s unnecessary, it doesn’t help anyone. That’s all I’ve said. But again, I run the house the way I want.
"I wouldn’t criticise publicly. You don’t do that. You say it internally. Dirty laundry is done internally."
The 56-year-old team boss was always expecting a rocky campaign with two rookies under his wing. But calling it as he sees it and forcing his drivers to face the facts is part of their apprenticeship, he insists.
"There hasn’t been much negativity," concluded Steiner. "But if there is something negative, we have to talk about it.
"We can’t say ‘oh, everything is nice, everything is great’, because then it gets really bad at some point.
"Formula 1 is a competitive sport and if you’re not honest with yourself, you’ll never be successful here."
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