Guenther Steiner blames budget cap for Haas’ weakness, claims to seek “bang for the bucks” with new upgrades
Guenther Steiner has explained why, he believes, Haas has run into problems with their car in the first three Formula 1 races of the 2023 season.
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Last year, Haas made waves in the Formula 1 community with their splashy season debut at the Bahrain GP. Thanks to the newly appointed Kevin Magnussen, the American team suddenly found themselves aiming for a spot in the top 5 as one of their drivers was giving a good fight to the big names in the business such as Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and his former teammate Valtteri Bottas. After the first race of 2022, Haas had surpassed both Alpine and Alfa Romeo, and was in the third spot in the World Constructors’ Championship with 10 points.
While fans might have called Kevin Magnussen’s thunderous race for Haas at the Bahrain GP as “beginner’s luck”, the Danish driver proved his mettle by getting the pole position at the Sao Paulo GP in Brazil. But all of Haas’ amazing results of 2022 are a thing of the past as the team seems to have settled back to the back of the grid with a meagre 7 points to their name after the three races that have happened till now.
At a recent interview, Haas chief Guenther Steiner delved into the topic of what is not working for his team at the moment. Last year, they had managed to score 10 points from the very first race of the season but now, they have not been able to manage 10 points from the first three Grands Prix in total. According to Steiner, their weakness lies in poor car development due to the budget cap issue, as he said, “We are working on a lot of things but the money you can spend on upgrades is limited because of the budget cap.”
Guenther Steiner fails to pinpoint on a single problem while explaining Haas’ poor results
Whenever a Formula 1 team fails to perform at the level that is expected of them, the onus falls upon the Team Principal to find out the root cause behind their results and to fix them. At the start of the 2023 season, Haas dropped Mick Schumacher and took up a far more experienced racer, Nico Hulkenberg, to aim for better results than last year.
As of now, Haas’ plan has terribly backfired. And when Guenther Steiner proceeded to explain the reason behind their failure, he said, “I think it’s a combination, like everything. It’s a fine line the way the rear dynamics work, and then it depends on the ride height and how the rear suspension works. That’s why I’m saying it’s a combination.”
Thus, it has become increasingly clear that Guenther Steiner is picking at straws trying to find out the reason why Haas are underperforming in 2023. Now, it remains to be seen if the Italian-American engineer manages to find the fault in his team or if Haas have to endure several more races with poor performances in the near future.
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Riddhi Mondal
(1821 Articles Published)