It was a complicated Q1 for the Haas drivers today in Zandvoort. Schumacher and Mazepin who finished the session P19 and 20 were involved in a “misunderstanding” that spoiled Sebastian Vettel´s lap fast lap when the German was trying to get his Aston Martin into Q2.

MotorLat had access to a brief online meeting with Haas team principal Guenther Steiner where he explained what happened with his two drivers today.

“We have two young drivers and this situation will not be the last time. It´s difficult specially this year with fighting at the back the only fight is with your teammate in our case in the moment so obviously it´s a little bit more heated because the only thing you can win is your teammate battle. There should be a better system in place. We´ve got systems in place but you always try to maximize every opportunity it´s what we try to do and sometimes it doesn´t work. We need to go through this and I think going through this now is a lot better than going through this next year when we hopefully have a better car. “

The boss didn´t want to point fingers at anyone this time, “I think there´s no right or wrong we try to maximize the drivers tyre temperature and both have different ways to do it and It didn´t work out because at the end of the lap there was a queue again and there it got messy people leaving very slow the pit lane if you try to make a gap there you don´t achieve it the first queue was there and then you´ve got the 4 or 5 kms of the race track and then you are in a queue again it´s very difficult to do this and whatever you do sometimes it ends up not to be right so I think we´re all at fault and nobody´s at fault. We try to get the best out of the situation and it didn´t work out as we planned”

About the seemingly bad relationships between two drivers. Steiner believes it´s normal that they compete and do said “I would be disappointed if they not want to beat each other.”

When asked by MotorLat about the internal rules and what can he do as a team principal to make both drivers happy he said “I think their unhappiness comes from because we´re fighting at the back and they have to fight with each other for sure if we had a better car, things will change because the focus will be somewhere else and not only to beat your teammate…”

Asked about working with a Ferrari protégé and the son of the title´s sponsor “I am always working in the interest of the team because that´s the biggest asset we got…if there not team there isn´t anything. The team is still Haas F1. We always play fair and try to get the best of what we got.”

Finally, Steiner stated “I understand his frustration but there was no bad intention.”