Steiner still targeting points for Haas in Russia

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Haas team principal Gunther Steiner is still targeting points in today's Russian Grand Prix despite starting 15th and 16th.

Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez have been unhappy with the car's handling all weekend but managed to progress to Q2 in qualifying, finishing the second part of the session as the slowest two cars. Despite the gap to the top ten, Steiner is hopeful Haas can capitalise on any trouble for cars ahead.

"Once you get out of Q1 I was pretty happy," Steiner said. "Or in general we were happy, so all in all this is what we expected from this race because we could not find any grip. So it is pretty good.

"The race will be interesting because a lot will be going on there, so hopefully we are on the good end of a lot going on, and not on the back end of a lot going on. We are still aiming for points because even if we are 15th and 16th we can still get there."

But Steiner admits it will need some luck for Haas to move forward, saying the team needs to focus on steering clear of any incidents.

"Yes if we achieve that there is a possibility to get in the points because as we all saw the grip level is pretty low. So there could be some people going off, and hopefully it is not us because our grip level is not fantastic. But if we keep our nose clean I think we can achieve to get in the points."

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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.