Haas has decided to run both its spec in the upcoming F1 Las Vegas GP after the drivers’ have different preferences after running them.
Having brought a heavy update during the F1 US GP, Haas hasn’t been able to utlise it to its fullest thus far. It hasn’t been a smooth running with degradation still a big question mark as the team is looking to find answers by gathering more data.
After the running in America, Mexico and Brazil, Nico Hulkenberg has seemingly likened the old spec which suits his style while Kevin Magnussen has a bit more confidence in the updated version as it suits his style a bit more.
This has led to Haas undertaking an experiment which Aston Martin recently undertook with their own update. In this weekend’s Las Vegas GP, the team will run the old spec on Hulkenberg’s car, while the new one will be run on Magnussen’s car with nothing to lose.
Haas is already sitting last on the points table and it will be a difficult ask to get back to eighth where it was a couple of races ago. “The main drive behind this was Nico feels that for him the old spec suits him better, and Kevin is the opposite,” said Guenther Steiner.
“We’ve opted to give them what they want, we have two races to go and nothing to lose, so we’ve tried to do what we can. We could discuss gathering data, but we’ve got enough data, it’s a decision based on what each driver likes more than anything else. It puts them in a comfortable position so that they’re as happy as they can be with the car they get.”
While this experiment will be carried out, not just Haas but everyone on the grid will have to get through the expected lower temperature in Las Vegas which will pose a big challenge to generate good amount of grip levels with the tyres.
This is a challenge which they will have to just get on with as everyone will be in the same boat but Haas doesn’t expect degradation to be much worse for them than Brazil. “The low temperatures are a challenge, as everyone knows you need to keep the tires higher than the minimum temperature, which is higher than five degrees, so we always need to keep them a bit warmer, but it depends also a lot on the asphalt,” said Steiner.
“It’s a combination of temperature and roughness of asphalt, but I don’t think degradation can get much worse for us than in Brazil. On Thursday, during practice, we’ll get to know the surface, the track, the temperature and then we’ll know more.”
Magnussen, meanwhile, added: “If it’s going to be that cold in the night, then getting the tires up to temperature is going to be very difficult. We could see some spectacle – it’s going to be all about getting temperature in the tyres. Downforce helps with that, so let’s see how we go.”
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