Steiner happy to see another one-two finish for Haas F1

Haas F1 team boss Guenther Steiner was delighted after another encouraging showing by the new boys in Russia.

Romain Grosjean drove his VF-16 to a strong eighth-place finish in Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix at the Sochi Autodrom.

It was Grosjean’s third point-scoring result in the opening four races, which saw him to climb one spot in the championship standings to seventh.

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The Banbury team has now scored three-point paying finishes four races into its debut season.

The Russian Grand Prix solidified the Banbury team’s fifth-place position in the constructor standings, where it lies 29 points behind fourth-place Williams and five points ahead of sixth-place Toro Rosso.

Team-mate Esteban Gutiérrez finished 17th after bringing his VF-16 home for the second straight race.

Gutiérrez had to overcome an early pit stop for a new front wing, as he was caught up in the first lap, second-turn skirmish that involved a handful of drivers. The chain-reaction incident saw Gutiérrez get into the back of Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India.

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Compounding the problem was the stewards’ decision to impose a drive-through penalty, which Gutiérrez served on lap nine.

Steiner said: “After two days of testing and qualifying, we didn’t expect to finish eighth. However, we were always aiming for the points and we pulled it off again.

“Obviously, it was very unfortunate for Esteban [Gutiérrez] after his incident at the start but he will get back from this and hopefully he’ll be in the points soon. It was a great race from Romain to keep his position.”

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