Performances like Hukenberg's weren't unexpected reveals Steiner
General
HAAS team boss Gunther Steiner would have left the Canadian Grandprix with a sour taste in his mouth following the high of Nico Hulkenberg's high qualifying position, before slipping down the grid in the race. Although the German is determined that the team will work through it, and find the better race pace.
Race Pace Woes
"Absolutely. I mean, our race performance is not there where it should be" opens Steiner, while there are a couple excuses for the Hulkenberg's drop through the grid such as for the HAAS team as they were "unlucky with the yellow, the safety car and was in just a lap or two before but in the end, it doesn't take away that our race pace is not where we are good at and that's our biggest weakness in the moment."
"Obviously, that weakness is not a good one because you score points on Sunday and not on Saturday. I mean, it's great to qualify good, but then we knew already on Saturday our race pace was not what it should be and then, as you said, you wake up on Sunday morning knowing that you're going backwards but 15th maybe was a little bit over the top" continued the Italian pessimistically.
Aware of Sunday issues
The boss is well aware of what is causing the issues to come Sunday, yet the team hasn't been able to solve them yet "We have got the problem that we cannot keep the tyres in shape or in form. We need to sort that one out and in the long term, obviously, we need to work in the wind tunnel on the problem and short term, just to try to find the balance of the car so that we are stressing the tyres less" even toying with the idea that they could sacrifice "a little bit of qualifying performance to be better on Sunday"
Look ahead to this weekend
Rounding off with a statement of how this weekend's prospects are looking proves that Steiner wasn't all negative, "I’m hopeful, but I don't know yet. It's a sprint race. We can get one free practice. You know, there were people who didn't put soft tyres on at the end. It's very difficult to read into the results of FP1 here and on any sprint race weekend because it's just everybody does his own programme" as the boss rounded off his set of questions with this "So, I think I wouldn't read too much into FP1 but we did what we wanted to do in FP1. So, we have to see where it takes us between today, tomorrow and Sunday. You know, three exciting days in front of us."