Steiner: 100 GPs ‘worth celebrating’

With Haas set to compete in their 100th Grand Prix, team principal Guenther Steiner says that it’s a milestone worth celebrating.

The American team joined the sport in 2016 and enjoyed a fair amount of success in the first three seasons, finishing as high as P5 in the Constructors’ Championship in 2018.

Since then, however, there has been little to celebrate as they’ve struggled to score points in the past two years. Even so, Steiner believes that the fact that they’re still on the grid is an achievement in itself.

“First of all, I would like to thank all the people that have made it possible for us to get to 100 Grands Prix,” he said.

“Thinking back five years, when you start it – you never think you’re going to be celebrating something, but reaching 100 Grands Prix, I think that’s worth celebrating.

“Not many of the start-up teams in the last 10 or 20 years made it to that figure. I’d also like to thank specifically Gene (Haas) for making it happen. I’m very proud we’ve reached the mark and I’m very proud of us as a team.

“My thanks go out to our drivers too. Romain (Grosjean) unfortunately had to leave two grand prix early because of his incident in Bahrain, of which we were thankful for the outcome, and Kevin (Magnussen) has been with us the last four years and has been a big contributor to the growth of the team.

“Both of those guys will be remembered as part of the founding members of Haas F1.”

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After Grosjean’s horror crash in Bahrain, reserve driver Pietro Fittipaldi took his place for the second race there and will do so again for the season finale.

Steiner was pleased with how he did in his first race for the team, and is also excited to see another young driver in the car, mich Schumacher, who will take over from Magnussen in FP1.

“I want to wish good luck to Pietro (Fittipaldi) too for this weekend – he’s participating in his second Grand Prix,” he added.

“Having not sat in a race car around 10 months, I thought it was a good performance last time out in Bahrain from him. He’ll build and learn from that for this weekend.

“Finally, we’re excited to have Mick (Schumacher) join us this weekend and participate in FP1 on Friday. It’ll be good for him to start building relationships within the team and get a feel for the VF-20 before his test day on Tuesday”

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