Steiner: “If they can hold these positions, I will be more than happy tomorrow at this time.”

Saturday 18 June 2022

F1 | Canadian GP | Steiner: “If they can hold these positions, I will be more than happy tomorrow at this time.”

Guenther Steiner celebrates, as Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher put on a convincing display, to secure P5 and P6,  in the Canadian Grand Prix Qualifying Session.

Guenther Steiner celebrated a surprising Qualifying result, as Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher did everything right, to secure P5 and P6 in the difficult track conditions. They will sit side-by-side, on the grid, for the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The session was affected by the chilly Montréal weather, where temperatures dropped, and torrential rain flooded the circuit, affecting car and driver performances up and down the field.

Speaking to Sky Sports about how they achieved the result, Steiner said:

“I think just staying calm and execute it well, and not make many mistakes, and always do the right thing.

“You know it’s easy in the set up when you call it, but when you do it it’s not so easy. But the whole team did a good job, everybody stayed calm, the drivers, we know what we are going to do.

“These conditions, we know in the rain we are not bad, and we got the tone with both cars this time.”

Imola was also generous to the American team, that saw continuous changes in the weather. Magnussen popped his Haas car into P4 on the starting grid at the Emilia-Romagna Circuit in April. Teammate, Schumacher, was only just outside the top 10, in P12.

“It seems like when it’s cold we can get the tyres to work.

“In FP3 we couldn’t get the intermediate to work. We made some changes on the car, and obviously it worked with the modifications we did for it, so I’m pretty happy for the whole team.”

It’s been a while since both drivers finished in the top 10 in the same race. The team’s best ever result was at the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix, where Romain Grosjean and Magnussen finished strong, with a fourth and fifth place.

The Haas team have had a mixed season so far. Is it possible for Magnussen and Schumacher to match, or improve on the 2018 achievement?

“First of all we need to finish as we didn’t do that in the last race - at least with one car we didn’t. So we need to get to the finish. We just need to try to keep the positions, or, even better if something happens in front of us. But first of all, if they can hold these positions, I will be more than happy tomorrow at this time.”