Romain Grosjean and Haas back on the points’ doorstep

This is becoming a habit that Haas’s men could do without. For the fifth time this season, one of their cars finished in the worst place, 11th. This time, it’s Romain Grosjean. But for the Frenchman, it’s a sign of a great comeback since he had been pushed back to 17th position due to a penalty related to a gearbox change.

To climb back up, he adopted a daring strategy, namely to make his set of soft tires last as long as possible. He didn’t put up any resistance when other drivers caught up with him because that wasn’t his priority. He thus achieved the feat of keeping his tires for 28 laps, although the final laps were challenging: « We tried a very aggressive one-stop strategy. I had a bit of graining on the softs at the end of the first stint. It cost us a few seconds but I don’t think I could have had the 12 seconds needed to finish 10th at the end. »

So close to scoring points today… Next time 👌!!!! #ItalianGP #r8g @HaasF1Team #f1

— Romain Grosjean (@RGrosjean) 4 septembre 2016

Günther Steiner simply regretted that Esteban Gutierrez did not take advantage of his 10th place on the grid due to a poor start: “I think once it got going, it was a good race. If you take away the first 20 seconds, we could have been in another position with Esteban. He missed his start, which set him back. But he made up for it to finish 13th.”

The team thus leaves with the satisfaction of having once again been in the fight with an established team like McLaren.

From our special correspondent in Monza