Guenther Steiner says Esteban Gutierrez did nothing wrong during the Singapore Grand Prix following criticism from Toto Wolff.
Wolff blamed the Haas driver for interfering with the lead battle between Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo when he was being lapped late in the race, with the Red Bull closing in rapidly on the lead Mercedes.
"We ran into a little bit of a traffic situation with Felipe [Massa] and Gutierrez, who were fighting for position, and Gutierrez at least makes it the same for everybody, he doesn’t care who is trying to overtake," Wolff said. "But honestly, I want to say there is a fight for the race win going on between two guys fighting for every tenth and one guy cruising around interfering with the race and it’s always the same guy.
"So I think Ron [Meadows] was shouting to Charlie [Whiting] and Felipe went out of the way and Esteban was just cruising out there and enjoying the gap he was making to Felipe."
When Steiner was made aware of Wolff's comments, the Haas team principal defended his driver.
“Yeah, and what did Nico say? He wasn’t worried in the last laps that the other one could take him at the line… So they need to get consistent between them," Steiner said.
"I think he’s a little bit of a punching ball at the moment, Esteban, because I think he was pretty good today and he was racing Massa, why should he get out of the way? You get out of the way when he needs to, but I think he was very fair today, I must admit. I don’t see a problem with what he did, it’s easy to say when you’re as dominant as Mercedes is, so I would take that comment as a Toto comment.”
Asked if criticism of Gutierrez was due to a few drivers previously having already voiced complaints, Steiner replied: “Correct.
"I think it all started with Lewis [Hamilton] giving him the finger (in Hungary). It all started with that one, so I don’t think that’s a correct gesture from a Mercedes driver. So I think it all started with that.
"They didn’t have to call us twice, we got out of the way, we got as quickly out of the way as Massa. I would leave it there, I’m not going into any more. Toto’s got his opinion, we have got our opinion, we didn’t get a fine, the FIA didn’t complain so if he has got a problem he needs to go and see the stewards.”
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