Guenther Steiner states that Haas won’t need major changes in their business model post the F1 2021 regulation changes as he elaborates on the cost saving aspect.
Despite major changes inbound in F1 post 2021, Steiner sees very little changes to Haas’ business model, even after the $175 million budget cap. The American outfit’s model has been much debated ever since they started in the championship.
Haas utilised a way to partner with Ferrari under the set guidelines of F1 which didn’t sit well with all the teams due to their rapid growth. They made inroads last season with their performances but lost touch in 2019. But there is a big change coming in 2021.
However, Steiner sees little change in their set business model with Ferrari. “Very little changes,” he started. “The business model changes very little. And that for I say I am not against it. I think there was a good compromise found for us.
“Because in the beginning they wanted to ban that you can buy suspension. Now they realised that we can buy suspension. I mean we haven’t got a problem with it in general and then some of the parts which before we bought, now, they will be standard parts.
“I mean, I have no problem with it. I mean we are negotiated it with them and they came up with what [it is]. Like the F1 brake ducts, they will be the same for everybody, so instead of buying them now from Ferrari, everybody has got the same brake duct.
“We haven’t seen the exact detail of it. They should be simpler anyway that’s what we have got now, because in the moment they’re really complex. So there are changes, and it changes a little bit for us, but we agreed to it beforehand.
“We are not like ‘wow, they didn’t tell us that’. If you would have had an opinion about not to do it, we would have come up before, and we did come up before on some of the things, which we have proposed in the first and second propose level.
“I don’t know how many proposals there were. But we kept on in the process always involved.” In terms of cost saving, Steiner felt that the F1 teams will find something else to spend on if one area of the car is restricted with a budget limit.
He feels, it is in every team’s DNA that if they are denied spending on one aspect of the car, they look for an alternative. The Italian is also certain that the expenses in the lead up to F1 2021 will be more since all will have to produce new parts.
In fact, Steiner reckons that cost saving measures should be left on the F1 teams as everyone will eventually rally behind cheaper measures to gain an advantage for themselves. “We should have the budget cap lower and then we wouldn’t need to make cost savings.
“Then a better job you do with your own cost saving, instead of being told where to save it, a better job you do with that one, more performance you will have. So that would come in as being a performance differentiator, how efficient you are.
“That is my opinion, because in F1 to make a cost saving if you have an open regulation and an open budget, you always can spend the money. You spend it somewhere else. If you have a single supply hub, the money you save there, then you invest that one in aero.
“If you have got the money liberty to spend it and if you’ve got the money available, you try to find performance somewhere else. So, I don’t think that is the biggest thing. The biggest thing will be to have an even lower budget cap.
“For big teams to come down [from] where they are now to what it is in the regulations now, it is already a big step. Because it is not easy. It took 20 years to get to this expenditure, so you cannot say ‘in 12 months now you have to cut them to half’.”
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Additional input by Duncan Leahy