Haas team principal Guether Steiner has ruled out placing extra team orders on the teams’ drivers following their late-race duel at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Following a safety car period at the Spanish Grand Prix, Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean battled it out for seventh place, with the former taking the place and defending hard against his team-mate.
In their battles, Grosjean was forced into running wide at turn one, and eventually lost ground and fell back to tenth place.
In the immediate aftermath, Steiner held talks between the Haas drivers to ensure that further points wouldn’t be lost over the rest of the season due to their racing.
Speaking ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix, Steiner defended his drivers, insisting that he was content that their actions were – mostly – just part of racing.
“You can never guarantee that it wont happen again,” said Steiner.
“We lost a few points, which you can never be happy about, but it’s a fine line. They fought hard, they didn’t try to push each other off intentionally.
“We made the decision to talk about it, but I’m not going to sit there and try to be a judge.
“They talked between them but in the end I think the atmosphere between them was maybe that they pushed a little bit too hard and, in the heat of the moment, it’s racing.
“We should’ve been rewarded for ending a boring race with a little bit of excitement!”
Whilst Steiner conceded that they eventually told their drivers to hold their positions in Barcelona, he ruled out the use of pre-meditated team orders in future races.
“The only way to make this call is to have a number one and a number two driver, and I don’t want to do that because they are equally good.
“I think you have to leave it to the moment. These are decisions that are always better made in hindsight.”
