Last year’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix is widely remembered for Haas’ double pit stop disaster and 12 months on the squad suffered another drama in the pit lane.
While Kevin Magnussen went on to lead the midfield and secure sixth spot, team-mate Romain Grosjean was afflicted by a slow left-front change that relegated him out of the points.
Grosjean’s race came to an end later on when the left-front wheel worked its way loose, forcing the Frenchman to park his VF-19 by the side of the track.
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“The negative [side of the weekend] is it could be a lot more [points] if we wouldn’t have had the déjà vu from last year with Romain’s pit stop,” said Haas boss Guenther Steiner.
“In the pit stop, you could see there was an issue as we lost seven seconds and the race was lost there even if he could get to the end he wouldn’t have got in the points, that was the issue.
“They got the wheel back on, we didn’t lose the wheel like last year, but after 15 laps it mechanically broke as we forced it on. The wheel nut broke.
“[The wheel] was on but when you take it off and on like that it gets damaged and the thread breaks.”
Steiner joked that reducing its year-on-year failures from two cars to one should at least mean a problem-free season-opener in 2020.
“[It was the] old team, it just seems to be jinxed,” said Steiner on whether any new pit crew members were culpable.
“It is very strange like last year. After Melbourne we had 20 races without a problem then we come back here and we have a problem.
“The other good thing we are 50% up so next year we will be 100%. Maybe I’ve said that too early, it is disappointing but the good thing is the potential in the car is good.”
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