Haas down plays Austria’s ‘one race redemption’

Editor

Despite securing Haas’ best-ever result at a grand prix weekend, Gene Haas says it is not quite redemption for their early season mistakes.

Haas lost massive points at the beginning of this campaign when both drivers retired in Australia while running inside the points due to bungled pit stops.

That, though, was just the beginning.

The team squandered points-scoring opportunities on other occasions, putting Haas bottom of the midfield log.

However, a 4-5 finish in Austria has elevated them to fifth with 49 points.

Team owner Haas is refusing to get carried away.

“Well it’s a one race redemption. If we can do it for five races, then maybe we’ve got something,” he said.

“I wouldn’t put too much into a single race success. There’s a lot of randomness in racing.”

And while Sunday’s result was down partly to bad luck for those ahead, three retirements from Mercedes and Red Bull, team boss Guenther Steiner concedes one needs to be around to capitalise when luck works in your favour.

“Everybody realised the potential the car has got, we just didn’t turn it into enough points. We had some points but we didn’t make enough.

“This time, we scored. We were lucky this time, by two dropping out or three dropping out in front of us so to finish fourth and fifth. In the end, the car showed it was the best of the rest, dominating that position.

“Everyone slowed down a bit at the end with the tyres, everyone was getting scared having a problem with it. Everybody executed very good the whole weekend, we didn’t have issues.

“This was a good weekend, not just a good race or a lucky race. Good executions and the luck was the three in front of us went out. Otherwise we would have been seventh and eighth.”

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