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Formula 1 Abu Dhabi GP
Haas hopes to benefit from "frail" Renault
Haas F1 boss Gunther Steiner believes his Formula 1 team could benefit from Renault's lack of reliability in their fight for sixth in the constructors' championship.
Adam Cooper
Edited: Nov 23, 2017, 11:52 AM
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Haas currently lies eighth, six points behind Toro Rosso, and just two behind Renault ahead of this weekend's final race in Abu Dhabi.
The jump from eighth to sixth could be worth $6.5m in prize payments to the team, which finished eighth in its rookie season in 2016.
Steiner acknowledged that after recent problems, both Renault and Toro Rosso could be hampered by engine issues and resulting grid penalties.
"Renault seems to be a little bit frail at the moment in all three teams, so that can come our way," said Steiner.
"I think with the engine we don't have an issue, to be honest. You can always have a failure, but there's not a bigger risk than there was at the races before. The engine this year was pretty reliable.
"But we still need to get out car in the points. Even if they finish behind us and we are 11th and 12th, nothing changes, We need to do a very good race weekend, and then hope that maybe they've got some issues."
Steiner says there is nothing special the team can do in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to help it claim sixth place in the constructors' championship.
"You just try to do as good as always," said Steiner. "If there was anything we could do special, we would have done it already. That maybe sounds too simple, but in F1 if you have something, you always try to do it all the time.
"There's nothing to lose, but there was nothing to lose in Brazil, I think. I don't think we'll do anything crazy or mad, not to say stupid. There's no need.
"I think we'll try to do a good job and just go out there and hope we've got a good weekend, and maybe get some points, and the other ones don't. But there's nothing we've got up our sleeve that we can do specially for this event."
Steiner insisted that the prestige associated with landing sixth place in the constructors' championship is as important as the huge sums of money at stake.
"It's always nice to get more," he added. "Who would say that three or four million doesn't make a difference? Everything makes a difference, even 100,000. You'd rather have it than not have it.
"I think more than the money, it's how close we were, and we missed it. Sixth place at the moment is only six points away.
"If you think if we had six points more, it would be a great season, from sixth to eighth is great. From eighth [last year] to eighth is like, yeah, we did more of the same. Which is true.
"You think of the money, but money is not everything. Six points more, we would be sixth, it would be a fantastic season, and we could talk for a long time off it. But it's racing, it's sport. Some you win, some you lose.
"But it's not lost yet, I want just to say that, we haven't given up on Sunday that we are sixth. It will be difficult, we're not dreaming and sitting here, 'yeah, we will end up sixth'.
"We will try to get the best out of it we can. We've been unlucky a few times, maybe we can get a bit lucky. You never know. For sure, we will miss the millions."
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