Steiner: "Brake approaches down to character"

Haas F1 boss Guenther Steiner has said that the differing ways in which Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen are facing the team's brake issues are simply due to their characters as drivers, and that he has no intention of changing them.

The American squad has notably struggled with its brakes throughout 2017 despite a change in supplier, with Grosjean being more badly affected than Magnussen on track. The Frenchman has so far scored 10 points to the Dane's 11, and has become known for voicing strong opinions about his brakes over the radio whilst racing. Steiner believes that Grosjean is having greater difficulty in coping with them because of his driving style, which Magnussen has tailored better to the situation.

"I think it's driving styles. Maybe Romain brakes later and harder and then turns and maybe Kevin brakes into it and turns already," he said. "Maybe it's easier to feel the brake, but I am not a race car driver so for me I can just see it from data and from my experience to see what people do, but that is my gut feeling, that that's what they do. Kevin can drive around it a little bit more.

"I think it's just stereotypes, it's just their characters," he added later. "I don't want to change characters because I know that I am not able to. You try and get the best out of them, that's my job. I think as Romain said, he's not given up. He knows we cannot fix this brake at the moment. He maybe now lives with that and looks forward to having the new brake. It's the only thing he can do otherwise he continues to run into a wall, it will not change."

Mason Hawker