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Haas Formula 1 team principal Guenther Steiner has defended the way his outfit “stage-managed” the Formula 1 sprint in Austria after public discontent from Mick Schumacher.
Schumacher felt he should’ve been waved past team-mate Kevin Magnussen due to having better pace, and believe he would’ve been able to attack Esteban Ocon for what eventually became a sixth-place finish and three points.
Instead, Magnussen scored two points for seventh, while Schumacher was unable to keep Lewis Hamilton behind and dropped down to a non-scoring ninth-place finish.
Steiner had not spoken to Schumacher at the time he faced the media, but insisted when informed of his driver’s discontent that “we know exactly where we were and to get points for the team, we had to do what we did, and it was the right thing to do”.
Asked whether Haas could’ve stage-managed the race, he said: “We stage-managed it, we said, ‘Do not go past’!”
The question, therefore, was whether Haas should’ve swapped its cars rather than protecting Magnussen’s sixth place.
Regarding a swap, Steiner said: “It wouldn’t have worked because he [Schumacher] wasn’t faster.
“Obviously you are faster because you are in DRS, and we spoke about this before the race. I explained to them: here it will be who is – if you can come out after the start behind each other, the second one thinks he is faster because you are nine tenths of a second faster because of the DRS effect.
“But that doesn’t make you faster, because as soon as you go in front, the other guy is nine tenths faster. As soon as you let somebody by, Lewis is so close and will sneak by as well and then get us afterwards.
“We monitored very well if he was faster or not, but in the corners. You have got a guy sitting there just doing that as a full-time job.
“So we monitored everything and I think we did completely the right thing, because otherwise we would have gone out of the points with both cars, or maximum maybe achieved one point.”
Steiner said Schumacher “did a fantastic job to defend” against Hamilton, adding: “You couldn’t do any better.”
“Fighting with Lewis Hamilton, it’s pretty good and he did a very good job in holding him off, so Kevin could go and bring the points home for the team.”
Schumacher’s other bone of contention was the fact Magnussen pulled over a second clear late on, leaving him without the use of DRS and allowing Hamilton to complete an overtake Schumacher felt wouldn’t have come otherwise.
Magnussen was indeed asked to “help with the DRS’ on the third-to-last lap, but Hamilton got past Schumacher before the latter had a chance to get back within DRS range.
Steiner said the team did evaluate tactically slowing up Magnussen earlier, “but you cannot say that [to Magnussen] too early, because then you take the risk that if Lewis gets past Mick and then obviously he would find himself in the DRS zone, he could get past Magnussen as well”.
“The last three laps we realised that, even if Lewis gets past Mick, he cannot catch Magnussen any more, we told Kevin to slow down to get Mick into the zone,” added Steiner.
“Sometimes you need to be very careful on the defensive and say, ‘hey, what do we want to bring home: two points for sure, or maybe trying for three and risk being left with nothing?'”
