MEXICO CITY -- Haas boss Guenther Steiner has explained why the team told Romain Grosjean to "shut up" as he voiced his concerns about whether his car would make it to the end of the U.S. Grand Prix.
A radio transcript has emerged since the race in Austin of a frantic Grosjean telling the team he was worried about the state of his front-left tyre. Though not broadcast on the world feed of the race, the audio was made available on F1's official app to members with a subscription.
The messages do not carry an individual timestamp from the race and have been edited together into one 46-second audio file as opposed to individual sound files..
Early on in the recording, he says: "I think we should retire the car, it's not going to the end. I can see the whole f---ing left tyre!"
After a short gap, another message from the Frenchman follows: "What are we doing guys, seriously?"
To which he is cut off with: "Shut up!"
That is followed up with another message from Grosjean, saying: "You are not paying with your life here. The tyre is completely gone."
The audio file finishes with Grosjean's apologetic race engineer Gary Gannon telling him to bring the car in slowly to retire, but he nurses it to the chequered flag anyway as it was already the final lap of the race. Grosjean claims the team lost a sensor on the car which meant the pit wall did not know the condition of his tyre.
Steiner says the message was intended to stop the complaints and give the team time to work out what to do.
When asked by ESPN to confirm who had broadcast the message and to elaborate on the story behind it, Steiner said: "It was me, yeah. I was like we had to put a stop on it. We understand it, and there's a point and I just want to give him the message: 'enough!'. If we need to come in, we come in, but we don't need to come in arguing."
Steiner confirmed there was no lingering issue from the exchange, which he is happy to accept came from a heat of the moment situation.
"We spoke after the race, but he went back with Gene [Haas] to California. We chatted today, it's all good. I think he understood and I understand why, I was as frustrated as well. I wasn't happy but I wanted to say it was enough, we got it, it's enough, it's fine. We actually had a laugh about it [later].
"It was a tough weekend for the whole team and at some stage, I don't want to waste time speaking on the radio, it's enough"
In his own media session 90 minutes later, Grosjean refused to dwell on the issue but voiced his frustration at how the messages had been grouped together in the snippets of audio and video which had circulated on social media.
"In the clip I have seen, if I can make that many sentences in one go I am pretty strong," he said. "I think that was 30 lap sentences put in one and went out there. I cannot talk all through the lap while racing, it's not possible.
"I was a bit shocked with the amount of clips that were put together and looked like it was one all sequences, but it was not. I've spoken to Guenther, we're all clear. I felt for my safety at one point because my front tyre was more than gone and maybe I should have come in. They couldn't know it as we lost the sensor on the front-left in that race so they didn't have the pressure, the temperature or anything."