Team principal Gunther Steiner admits that they expected more with the developments
Steiner has admitted that they expected more with the developments, but then again they were “fully aware” that they had changed over early to the 2018 car. Haas probably hurt itself in the 2017 Formula 1 season, as Steiner recognises.
At the championship’s halfway point, Haas sat seventh in the constructors’ standings – four points behind Toro Rosso.
By the end of the year, Renault had leapfrogged both and Haas ended up six points off Toro Rosso in the same eighth place it had achieved in its debut season in 2016.
Haas made no secret of the fact it abandoned its 2016 car development very early to prioritise preparing for last year’s major aerodynamic rules changes and working on its current car for longer in 2017.
However, Steiner is sure Haas will benefit from having rules stability for the first time in its very short F1 history:
“You have to focus on developing instead of reinventing, so we will see how we are with that one, but it’s a new chapter and I hope it’s a good one”.
Steiner, though, declares that Haas needs more consistency in performance because, as he says, the points that they score need to be persistently to move up in the standings:
“The three or four events where we missed out because of failures cost us dearly.”
