Haas drivers remain free to race each other

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner insists Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean are free to race after their tension in Barcelona.

Following the safety car restart towards the end of the race two weeks ago, both Haas drivers battled it out for the 'best of the rest position'.

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After making wheel to wheel contact with Magnussen, Grosjean went off the track and in the coming laps, slipped from eighth place to tenth, costing Haas a handful of points.

But Steiner insists that both drivers remain free to race each other, as he saw the incident as just a form of racing and something that happens when drivers fight.

“You can never guarantee that it won't happen again,” said Steiner.

“We lost a few points, which you can never be happy about, but it’s a fine line. I think 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. Where do you stop from 'what is racing? and what is wrongdoing?'.

“They spoke 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 get rewarded for ending a boring race with a little bit of excitement!”

Haas doesn't want number one, number two status'

Steiner added that he was reluctant to use team orders as doing so would single out one driver as the number one within the team.

“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. Why would you do that?

“I like a good fight as well. I think you leave it to the moment. These are decisions that are always better made in hindsight, but for me, this was racing.”