Steiner: Haas has ‘stood still’ in 2019
Haas sits ninth in the 2019 championship
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner believes his team has stood still throughout the 2019 Formula 1 season.
The team has struggled this season, primarily with maintaining tyre temperature but also with developments not bringing the expected performance boost.
It’s seen the American team wrestle throughout the season with race pace, often qualifying well only to fade as the race goes on.
As the season enters its final phase, Steiner has admitted that its underlying problems have not proved easy to resolve, even if he believes they have at least identified what they are.
“You go out with new tyres, the tyres work for two laps then the temperatures go down and you are done again,” explained Steiner.
“We are always so on the edge with everything (such) that a little thing happens and we are gone.
“The drop off is not a tenth or two, it is drop off that can mean a second.”
However, the tyres alone are not the team’s sole problem, with developments brought to the car not having worked as expected.
It’s seen the squad forced to split its cars, with Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen running in different configurations in an effort to expedite the identification of a root cause.
Worryingly it’s often seen the older, Melbourne spec car be the quicker of the two.
“Changing over to the Melbourne spec helped a lot to understand it and get the reality of where we are. That is why it was done,” Steiner said.
“The Melbourne spec is as good as this one (current spec).
“We know what that means; we didn’t make any progress, everybody else did.
“In the first year with the new regulations you have to make progress and we didn’t.
“That is where we are. That is why the car was good for testing and Melbourne and then we stood still.”
Haas currently sits ninth in the constructors’ championship with 26 points to its name, the bulk of those coming at the chaotic German Grand Prix.
Formula 1 continues this weekend with the Singapore Grand Prix, practice for which begins at 1830 AEST on Friday.
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