Gene Haas relieved to be back in the points in home race
Gene Haas admits that a little luck contributed to his team scoring a point in its home race in Austin, following a long wait since its last top 10 finish in Austria.
Romain Grosjean ended a frustrating run of 11th-place finishes for the team by earning a 10th place, helped by the retirements of Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen.
“We started off optimistic, and then we struggled,” said Haas. “Our cars were a good half a second off the pace we should have been at, we just couldn’t figure it out. Obviously in Japan we qualified in Q3, this race we qualified Q1 and Q2, so we weren’t really happy with it, and we knew it was going to be a tough fight.
“Starting the race we were a little bit like, ‘this is going to be a difficult one.’ Esteban had a brake problem which took him out early, but fortunately we had a little bit of luck with Grosjean. He did a great job, we struck to the strategy, it all worked out really well, and we had a little bit of luck go our away with attrition, and we wound up with a point. I was kinda hoping that when Massa and Alonso banged together that would help us too!”
Regarding the reception he had from US fans, he said: “From what I see out there on pit road everybody’s been really enthusiastic, a lot of people came up and said hello. It’s been good.”
