Haas concede it is ‘too late’ to chase fourth

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Haas concede it is 'too late' to chase fourth

Haas concede it is 'too late' to chase fourth

Haas have conceded defeat in the battle for fourth in this year’s standings, but Guenther Steiner says P5 is not bad afor a team that’s only in their third year.

Although it looked as if Haas could catch Renault in second half of this season, the French manufacturer surged ahead at the United States and Mexico GPs.

Haas tried to fight back in Brazil, however, even with both cars inside the top ten, they head to Abu Dhabi 24 points behind Renault.

And that, Steiner acknowledges, is too big of a gap to close in one race.

“It’s too late now,” said the team boss. “It is somehow (frustrating).

“But on the other side, don’t forget that we are only in our third year and it’s still quite a big achievement to beat other people.

“In theory we should have beaten Renault without some mistakes from us, without their protest.

“You know, some fights you win, some you lose.

“But in the end, for the whole team, it’s still a good result to finish fifth — which we should now unless something magical happens in Abu Dhabi.

“We can be happy with that.

“It’s always frustrating a little bit because you always think you can do better — but that’s racing. You always want to do better than you actually do.”

Haas lost points in the opening race of this season when both drivers suffered pit stop issues while crashes have also hampered their progress.

Added to that they lost eight points in Italy when Romain Grosjean was disqualified.

Steiner says there was no one point in the season when they lost P4.

“I think we had a very strong run into the mid-season break,” he explained.

“After the mid-season break we didn’t have a few strong races, then we had the protest, Mexico was a very bad race… So I don’t think it was lost because of any of those reasons.

“I think if you say fourth place was lost in Australia more than anywhere else — 22 points, plus the points that Renault scored, we would be fourth now.

“But if and when doesn’t count. We are grown-ups; we can live with that, we can still be proud.”

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