Steiner supports Horner’s F1 stewards inconsistency call

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner says he agrees with Red Bull boss Christian Horner’s criticism of inconsist race stewards and feels his own team was a victim of the problem at the United States Grand Prix.

While Steiner didn’t want to get too deeply involved in the Max Verstappen post-race five-second time penalty for overtaking Kimi Raikkonen off the track, the Haas chief agreed with Horner’s call for consistent decisions and penalties for incidents of a similar nature.

Haas saw Romain Grosjean forced on to the grass during qualifying by a slow Lance Stroll, with the Williams driver give a three-place grid drop and one penalty point, while the American team’s other driver Kevin Magnussen received the same penalty for blocking Sergio Perez in qualifying.

Steiner says the Stroll incident was “dangerous” due to the speed difference of the two cars while Magnussen’s was at slow speeds yet the received an equal penalty and as a result he has sympathy for Horner.

“I don’t want to see Stroll penalised but next time I want to know whether it is five or three,” Steiner said. “The two are not comparable but we got the same penalty for what we did with Perez and what Stroll did with us.

“What we had was dangerous because of the speed difference was huge and with Perez it was in a slower part of the circuit. Perez could see he wasn’t going to move because Magnussen didn’t know that he was there.

“My point is how can we be more consistent and I think it was the same for what happened with Verstappen. There are a few incidents like Christian was saying about a few other cars going off track and they got away with it. I won’t judge it because I didn’t see it.

“Last year when Esteban [Gutierrez] was penalised at Spa-Francorchamps five positions and three penalty points for pushing Pascal Wehrlein off it was dangerous, we took it and apologised. Yesterday the situation for us was similar and Stroll got away with three positions and one point. It is just inconsistent.

“I don’t want Stroll to get more, I don’t want anyone to get penalised, but we don’t know what to expect. It is the same for Christian as it seems some can do it and some cannot do it.

“We need to be consistent as it is very difficult to interpret the rules if they are not consistent and there is no explanation why.”