The German driver was in the spotlight over the Baku weekend after his big crash in Monaco, which followed earlier incidents in Jeddah and Miami.
His 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix was compromised by a technical problem that prevented him from participating in FP1 and from then on he had to work to catch up. In qualifying he finished last, about 1.1 seconds behind his teammate Kevin Magnussen.
In the race, he finished 14th, just ahead of Nicholas Latifi, who was penalized with a stop-and-go right at the start of the race. He also finished 38 seconds behind Yuki Tsunoda, who had a very slow pit stop due to a rear wing problem.
While Haas were happy to see that Mick Schumacher had an incident-free weekend, Steiner acknowledged that he also has to find some more performance.
“It’s a tough situation for him for sure at the moment, and for the team as well,” Steiner told Motorsport.com.
“This is a performance sport, and what do you need in a performance sport? Have it.”
“But I think he did the right thing this time, because if he had an accident here again, I mean, that wouldn’t be a good thing, you know?”
“I’d rather have it that way than wreck the car again, trying to do something that maybe you can’t.”
Mick Schumacher, Haas F1 Team, on the starting grid
Mick Schumacher was the first to admit that he hadn’t had a perfect race, but he defended himself by saying that his reduced practice time compromised his preparation.
“Not great, my back hurts a little,” he said after the flag. “It hasn’t been the weekend we expected.”
“I think from Saturday onwards everything went well, so that’s good. But anyway, once you go into Saturday blind, it’s a bit hard to judge if the set-up is right.”
“We only had one free practice session to work on it and unfortunately the car setup wasn’t the best. So yeah, we were stuck until the race.”
Asked by Motorsport.com to explain his problems, he said: “I felt quite a bit of understeer mid-corner and oversteer on the exit, so it wasn’t ideal. So we were wearing a lot of tires. And I think until the last stint It didn’t go the way we wanted, that end of the race felt pretty good.”
After a run of three races without scoring points, Steiner was further frustrated when Magnussen was forced to retire with a Ferrari engine failure while struggling to cross the finish line in the top 10.
“Something happened in the power unit, the V6 or the turbo,” said the Haas director. “It’s never good to have problems, it could have been eighth or ninth. The ninth was pretty much guaranteed.”
“Our biggest problem was that we couldn’t pass Esteban Ocon on the main straight, otherwise eighth was pretty much assured as well,” he concluded.
