Steiner: There has never been talk of replacing Grosjean

But team principal Guenther Steiner scoffed at the suggestion when speaking to reporters ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix weekend, “I don’t know where the rumours came from, so there are no rumours. I think that is the easiest way to stop them."

“We didn’t even speak about that. Somebody’s having two bad races; there’s no point to start rumours or to start to do things. The only thing that we need to do is to get Romain back to where he is capable of competing, which we all know."

“He’s a very capable guy. He had two bad races. I’m not a person where if someone is on his knees, I try to kick him. That’s unfair. For sure he knows better than all of us what not to do, not to do another Baku or Barcelona. But can it happen again? Yes, it could. It’s Monte Carlo."

“Just to stop the rumours, there was never talk about that. I don’t know where they came from or whoever brought them up. I’m not trying to say anything wrong. I think I saw maybe one thing … I never spoke with anybody about the rumours. I would come to you guys if I did anything anyway.”

Grosjean crashed out of the race in Baku by making a rookie mistake while warming his tyres during a safety car period. Last time out in Spain he crashed on the opening lap, after spinning during a Turn 2 melee shortly after the start.

While points have eluded the Frenchman thus far this season, his teammate Kevin Magnussen has bagged all of the Haas' 19 points scored after five rounds.

Steiner explained how he dealt with Grosjean after the setback in Barcelona, “During the race, I came off and went to speak with him. I know how you feel if something like this happens. We all have bad moments in our life and our careers and how you feel, and I said to him he’ll just get over it. It happens. There’s no point to dwell on it.”

“You know what you can do – get over it, focus on the races coming, and be positive. If you’re negative, negatives come out. It snowballs. So we need to be positive about it. We know what we can do, we know how good he is in Monte Carlo or how he can be in Monte Carlo. That is what we are focusing on from here,” added Steiner.

Grosjean has played down the criticism, claiming that the media are making a mountain out of a molehill.