Haas Team principal Guenther Steiner responded to Toto Wolff’s outburst against Nikita Mazepin, calling it a publicity stunt.
At the Spanish Grand Prix, Wolff expressed his frustration with Mazepin to race director Michael Masi on Lap 26. When Mazepin ignored blue flags yet again, this time for Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, Wolff ripped into him. This was the first time fans could hear a team principal talk with a race director.
Steiner defended his driver later on, and didn’t mince his words one bit. He retorted, saying, “I think Nikita did a good job to get out of it and maybe Toto being Toto just wanted to make sure that he showed who is in command here and that everybody should move when he is coming along. He didn’t let his guys do that work”
Steiner doubled down on his criticism of Wolff, saying, “He wanted a bit of publicity, I guess.”
Inexcusable performance
Haas is having a shambolic season, sitting dead last in the Constructors Championship. Their miseries continued in Barcelona, and Steiner was not pleased at all.
He said, “At a race weekend like this, you will never see me pleased or happy but on the other side, we have to see the good things. We finished with both cars, no damage, everything was good so for sure we did some laps, they did some learning again and at the start both guys did a good job.”
This wasn’t the first time Mazepin ignored blue flags. At the Portuguese GP, he earned a five-second penalty for doing the same thing and earned the wrath of Sergio Perez. He has also been told off by Charles LeClerc and Nicholas Latifi.
Haas have next to no momentum heading into the Monaco Grand Prix. They need to go all-in to get some points and save their season.