BARCELONA, Spain – While Sunday’s Formula One Emirates Spanish Grand Prix did feature a clash between Haas F1 Team stablemates Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, it wasn’t all bad for the American squad.
The fifth race of the season marked Haas F1’s first double points finish of 2019, with Magnussen and Grosjean both finishing inside the top 10 at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Magnussen crossed the line seventh, best among the duo, after passing his teammate when they came together at turn one following a restart with 14 laps left on Sunday at the 2.892-mile, 16-turn course.
“We had a brilliant second pit stop from the team when the safety car came out that let us jump Kvyat. I had good temperature in my tires on the restart and I got past Romain,” Magnussen recalled. “There was contact between me and Romain, which isn’t what you want to see but it was nothing intentional.
“It is not what you want, contact between teammates, but there was no intention from me or Romain; I’m sure.”
As Magnussen got away over the closing laps, Grosjean slipped behind McLaren’s Carlos Sainz and Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat, but was able to fend off Kvyat’s teammate Alexander Albon to remain in the points.
Sunday marked Grosjean’s best finish of the season and was a sign of progress for the Swiss-Frenchman.
“It was a good weekend; we had good pace,” said Grosjean. “Before the safety car, we were running on our own, doing a good race – I was happy (with) that. The restart was a bit more complicated, and it wasn’t ideal for me, as I lost a few positions in there. Overall though, I’m happy with the way we’ve acted this weekend, and I’m happy we’ve shown that the car is fast. Now it’s onto the next one.”
With Magnussen and Grosjean’s results in Barcelona, Haas F1 jumped up to sixth in the constructor’s standings, two points behind Racing Point and two points ahead of Alfa Romeo.
That positive move forward was the focus for Haas F1 team principal Gunther Steiner, not the contact that produced a bit of a stir during and after the final laps on Sunday.
“It’s ended as being a little bit of a controversial weekend, but we’ve sorted it out – cleared the air between the drivers. That’s the most important thing after their race,” noted Steiner. “We maybe lost a couple of points, but we’re all happy to move forward from here and everything is fine.
“It’s been a good weekend points-wise, with getting two cars into the points.”
Next up for Haas F1 is an in-season test session this week at Barcelona, before the squad gears up for the Monaco Grand Prix in two weeks’ time.
“Hopefully we can learn a lot from the test here this week, so we can do the same (score double points) in Monaco and Canada,” Steiner said. “At the moment it looks like they’ll be a little bit more difficult for us, because of the track layouts, but I think we can still score points.
“The whole team did a very good job this weekend and we came away with double points – happy.”