Haas team principal Guenther Steiner believes it's unfair that the stewards always seem to react to Fernando Alonso's "cries" over team radio, after Romain Grosjean was penalised during the Mexican Grand Prix.
Alonso and Grosjean were tussling over position in the opening laps before the Frenchman ran wide. Alonso radioed his team over the incident, knowing the stewards would be monitoring the team radio and would potentially take action.
"OK, Grosjean cut turn 14 so he needs to give back the position please," Alonso said, whilst Grosjean insisted he had nowhere to go, telling his team: "I had to cut the corner. I couldn’t go anywhere with Fernando pushing me."
Alonso later added: "Yes, please, the position. Please. Please. Race director, look at the race please."
Grosjean was duly hit with a five-second time penalty following the radio calls. Although it's not known whether the stewards were looking into the matter prior to the messages, Steiner believes it's unfair Alonso is always listened to, whereas other drivers aren't.
"Normally he [Alonso] cries like a baby like he did with Romain. And somehow he always gets the FIA stewards to listen to him. But I don’t think he even tried it with Kevin [Magnussen] because there was no point, he knew he wouldn’t give it up anyway," Steiner told TV3.
Discussing Haas' other driver Magnussen, Steiner said his image as a "bad boy" isn't an issue for the team and believes it's necessary to be tough if you want to progress in the sport.
"I think he’s a racer," he added. "That’s why we took him on because we want to go out there and race and fight.
"Even if you get critiqued because you fight you don’t have to give up. Because everybody [says] ‘he’s the bad boy’, they want to knock him down or break him. But he knows that, he knows if he wants to come up you have to behave like this and maybe they knew that he wasn’t going to move."
