Nate Saunders F1 Associate Editor 3 Minute Read

Haas puts the midfield on notice in Austria Is Haas finally hitting its full potential after getting both drivers into the top five places at the Austrian Grand Prix?

SPIELBERG, Austria -- Gene Haas is refusing to get carried away with his team's best-ever Formula One result.

Haas was a clear fourth on pace all weekend at the Austria Grand Prix and managed to deliver with a clean weekend. Three retirements among the frontrunners helped propel the Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen to fourth and fifth respectively, giving Haas its biggest haul of points on its 50th race in F1.

Asked if the result felt like redemption after a series of squandered opportunities in early 2018 and if he thought it was a sign of things to come, Haas replied: "Well it's a one race redemption. If we can do it for five races, then maybe we've got something.

"I wouldn't put too much into a single race success. There's a lot of randomness in racing."

Haas scored its best ever result in Austria with Grosjean finishing fourth and Magnussen in fifth. Octane/Action Plus via Getty Images

After dropping a lot of points in 2018 Haas boss Guenther Steiner was happy to accept the luck coming back in the other direction.

"Everybody realised the potential the car has got, we just didn't turn it into enough points. We had some points but we didn't make enough.

"This time, we scored. We were lucky this time, by two dropping out or three dropping out in front of us so to finish fourth and fifth. In the end, the car showed it was the best of the rest today, dominating that position.

"Everyone slowed down a bit at the end with the tyres, everyone was getting scared having a problem with it. Everybody executed very good the whole weekend, we didn't have issues. This was a good weekend, not just a good race or a lucky race. Good executions and the luck was the three in front of us went out. Otherwise we would have been seventh and eighth."