Steiner wants Grosjean to temper emotions over radio

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner says he’s keen to continue to ease Romain Grosjean’s outbursts over the team radio but accepts he won’t change the French driver’s approach.

Since joining Haas Grosjean has frequently had his team radio transmissions broadcast to the TV feed, usually due to his complaints or frustrations, and despite being told to keep his emotions in check this season he has still been pushed into the spotlight due to his outbursts.

The radio talk came to a head during the team’s home race at the United States Grand Prix when Steiner was forced to tell Grosjean to ‘shut up’ over the team radio, which the Haas boss clarified as an instruction rather than retaliation against his driver.

“In Austin he was getting too much in a spin so I told him we could hear him but if you keep talking then we cannot talk to you,” Steiner said. “If you are on the radio all the time then how can we tell you what to do so somebody had to stop him and usually that is me.”

Steiner feels Grosjean’s radio messages have relaxed during 2017 but accepts it is part of the French driver’s character make-up which is unlikely to change.

“It is less but I didn’t do a proper study on it,” he said. “Even if I did study it I can’t fix it anyway. I think he has calmed down and realised it doesn’t help, not that it is good or bad, but it just doesn’t help so why get like this rather than working in a constructive way.

“He still has his outbursts but normally they are shorter unlike Austin when we had a bad day. We speak sometimes about it but not about fixing it and more about what he thinks it does to help. He has calmed down but still has he peaks. I will not change that.”