Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix started with an enormous bang after Haas' Romain Grosjean careered across the track mere seconds into the race, taking out two cars in the process.

The Frenchman was widely criticised for the incident, especially by Nico Hulkenberg, one of the two drivers he forced to retire, who said that Grosjean needed to "work on himself" in the aftermath.

"He [Grosjean] didn't look great in that scenario," Hulkenberg told the BBC. "Generally, he likes spinning, but the first lap is not a good time to do it with everyone there.

"He has to look at it and do some work on himself."

Understandably, Formula One acted fast to hand a punishment down to Grosjean for causing the crash.

The 32-year-old will face a three-place grid penalty at the Monaco Grand Prix - not good news for a driver who is yet to score a point this season.

Haas have quickly responded to the penalty - and they're not happy.

"He tried to get out of the way," claimed team principal Gunther Steiner.

"He said: 'I had the decision to make: do I stand still or do I go through?' And he went through and he knocked two out.

"If he had stood still, we don't know, maybe he would have knocked five out.

"It's never a good place to be, in the middle, whatever you do, that's my point of view. For me it's a start incident; whatever you do, afterwards it will be wrong.

"He didn't do anything stupid at the start. It's not that he tried to overtake, or brake late, or that he understeered into anybody.

"His car spun around and, yes, it doesn't look good if someone accelerates when you're in the middle of the track, but it's a millisecond decision that he needed to take."

Steiner did take a moment to offer something resembling sympathy for Gasly and Hulkenburg, although he also appears to believe that they can't feel too begrudged.

"I feel sorry for them that they got taken out, but he wasn't trying an overtaking manoeuvre."

As for why he feels Grosjean has faced such a penalty, Steiner doesn't believe it's any real mystery.

"In the moment his reputation is not the highest one. He's an easy target."

You can check out the incident below and judge for yourself - does Steiner have a point?