Guenther Steiner insists his Haas team made the right call by ignoring pleas from Mick Schumacher to switch places with Kevin Magnussen as he fought off Lewis Hamilton in Saturday's Sprint.
Haas were in a good place to score some important points in the short-form race, with both drivers qualifying inside the top eight. Magnussen finished exactly where he started after 23 laps, but Schumacher was unable to hold onto the final points spot after eventually losing out to Hamilton.
Not that he made it easy for the Brit. Despite having a seven-time world champion on his tail in an ailing but still faster Mercedes, Schumacher produced an outstanding display of defensive driving, aided by the DRS he was getting off his team-mate.
But it all came to an end with just a few laps to go, as Magnussen pulled away and out of DRS range. It left Schumacher without the pace in the straights that he needed to hold off Hamilton, despite the German warning of the danger over team radio.
And before his plea for Magnussen to stay within a second of him, he had asked the team to switch places as he felt he had more pace – but that request was denied. Even though Schumacher was eventually overtaken by Hamilton – and the German's subsequent fury – Steiner feels the team got the decision right.
"We know exactly where we were and to get points for the team, we had to do what we did, and it was the right thing to do," said the Haas chief. "[Swapping] wouldn't have worked, because he wasn't faster. Obviously you are faster because you are in DRS, we spoke about this before the race.
"I explained to them, if you can come out after the start behind each other, the second one thinks he is faster because you are nine-tenths of a second faster because of the DRS effect. But that doesn't make you faster, because as soon as you go in front, the other guy is nine-tenths faster!
"As soon as you let somebody by, Lewis is so close and will sneak by as well and then get us afterwards. We monitored everything and I think we did completely the right thing, because otherwise we would have gone out of the points with both cars, or maximum maybe achieved one point."
Meanwhile, Hamilton claimed damage he picked up in the early stages of the race was the reason why it took so long to get past Schumacher. "I got some sort of damage, but at least could continue," he said as he lamented that first-lap collision with Pierre Gasly.
