Gutierrez brands Haas dismissal as 'not fair'
Esteban Gutierrez says Haas should have given him another season to prove himself in F1 to make up for the team's reliability issues following confirmation he has been dropped from its driver line-up for 2017.
Haas this weekend announced Kevin Magnussen will join Romain Grosjean for next year, ending weeks of uncertainty for Gutierrez and leaving him with just options at Sauber or Manor to stay in F1.
Indeed, Gutierrez had been confident of being retained in 2017 as recently as his home Mexican Grand Prix, insisting he has shown pace relative to his team-mate Grosjean despite failing to score a point to the Frenchman's 29.
When asked whether he understood why Haas went on to choose the Renault driver over him, he said it is 'not fair' he is being dropped given the teething issues that have hampered him over the year.
"I don't [understand the decision]," he said. "I think you know that the performance is there. There were a lot of situations that were not really under my control.
"At the end of the day I respect the decision because it's their team. It's what they want to do, but on the other hand it's not a fair way how they put it in general, because, as you know, at the start of the season it wasn't ideal.
"There were a lot of mechanical problems. As a new team there were a lot of things going, a lot of mistakes. There were some mistakes from my side as well, but it was more from the team. I don't think I was evaluated the right way. I respect it, but I don't necessarily agree with it."
POINTS: The F1 Drivers' & Constructors' standings after the Brazilian GP
Indeed, matters appeared to reach a head during the Brazilian Grand Prix when Gutierrez retired with technical issues and was caught on camera throwing his gloves down and remonstrating with team boss Guenther Steiner. However, Gutierrez played the incident down.
"I was very angry about the situation," Gutierrez told F1i. "But I was not angry at anyone, it was just the wrong timing and afterwards we were laughing with each other just about the moment. It looked like there was something going on but not necessarily."
Gutierrez made his F1 debut in 2013 with Sauber but managed just a single top ten finish during two seasons with the Swiss team.
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