Steiner admits defeat in battle for fourth

Haas team principal Gunther Steiner has admitted that Haas is unlikely to beat Renault to fourth in the constructors' championship in 2018. The American outfit sits 24 points behind Renault in fifth place and with just one round remaining of this year's championship, the white flag has been waived by Haas.

Despite their best efforts, a poor run in the second half of the season has given them too much of an obstacle to overcome to beat Renault to 'best of the rest' behind the top teams in F1. Steiner admitted ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that he has given up on fourth in the standings.

"It’s too late now," he said.

"It is somehow, but on the other side, don’t forget that we are only in our third year and it’s still quite a big achievement to beat other people.

"In theory we should have beaten Renault without some mistakes from us, without their protest. You know, some fights you win, some you lose.

"But in the end, for the whole team, it’s still a good result to finish fifth — which we should now unless something magical happens in Abu Dhabi. We can be happy with that.

"It’s always frustrating a little bit because you always think you can do better — but that’s racing. You always want to do better than you actually do. I think we had a very strong run into the mid-season break.

"After the mid-season break we didn’t have a few strong races, then we had the protest, Mexico was a very bad race… So I don’t think it was lost because of any of those reasons.

"I think if you say fourth place was lost in Australia more than anywhere else — 22 points, plus the points that Renault scored, we would be fourth now.

"But if and when doesn’t count. We are grown-ups; we can live with that, we can still be proud."