Haas reserve little hope for Austria, ‘will treat it like a test session’, claims Guenther Steiner
Haas F1 Teamboss Guenther Steiner insists something is not right with the car after both of their drivers finish at the back than the position they qualify at.
Follow Us
Guenther Steiner
With a magnificent start to the 2022 and 2023 season, Haas have overcome their 2020-2021 criticisms. Now, the team has more experienced drivers with Niko Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen. This might be a better year than last one since Haas is showing some real progress as a team, and the drivers are performing very well.
In Canada, Nico Hulkenberg qualified second (before receiving a penalty) but finished 15th in the race. The challenges Haas has had with their tyre performance throughout a racing stint were brought to light.Team Principal Guenther Steiner stated that they will concentrate their efforts on resolving such issues at the Red Bull Ring, where Formula One will stage a sprint race in addition to the Grand Prix to offer up some extra points.
“We’re going into this race partly a little bit like a test session,” Steiner said. “We have a lot of things to try and cure our problems with the race pace, so we have a few ideas. As we have two races now this weekend, we’ve got double the amount of time to try to do different things. Obviously, we always try to get the best result possible but also maybe we compromise the best result possible for really understanding what is happening with our car on race day.”
Related: Christian Horner calls out Toto Wolff’s feeble “headphone smashing” team management
Haas discovers a number of “leads” that will even influence the VF-24 design
Team Boss Steiner is well aware of the issue and said they have a few “leads” to explore in an effort to solve this issue. “We’re investigating the very good performance we have in qualifying and not-so-good performance during the race at the moment,” Steiner said. “We’re trying to pinpoint it but for the next races we’re maybe going to try and find a sweeter spot between the two sessions, qualifying and the race, so something in the middle.”
This season, the vehicle performed well in qualifying but less so in the actual race, leaving the mechanics and engineers at Haas puzzled. The best example is recent recruit Nico Hulkenberg, who, like teammate Kevin Magnussen, has finished beneath his starting position in all but two races so far in 2023. Hulkenberg and Magnussen are two extremely seasoned Formula One drivers, and Steiner noted how important their input has been in guiding the development process.With eight points, Haas is in eighth place in the Constructors’ Championship right now.
In case you missed it:
Oscar Piastri exposes McLaren’s struggle against severe car limitations
Stay Updated!
Riddhi Mondal
(1821 Articles Published)