Guenther Steiner says they are working to improve their race pace and trim down the gap, with F1 Austrian GP becoming like a test session.
After a good start to F1 2022, Haas slowed down as the season progressed. They replaced Mick Schumacher with the experience of Nico Hulkenberg but their problems persisted in terms of the gap between their qualifying pace and race pace.
This has been the highlight of F1 2023 for Haas so far. They have done well enough in qualifying, but have lost out hugely on race pace side. They are working to solve the issues behind the scenes to at least balance to car enough to be strong on the race side.
The issue came about in Canada where both Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg went backwards, especially the German who qualified in the Top 5. Looking forward to Austrian GP, Haas boss Steiner is taking it as an extended test session as the they push.
They have ideas in place which they can only try it out in the grand prix weekends. “We’re going into this race partly a little bit like a test session as well,” said Steiner. “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. We’re working very hard to try and find out why the discrepancy of being very fast and not so good in the race is happening.
“We’ve got a few leads and for sure it will impact the VF-24 design. We obviously have to take that feature out of the car next year,” summed up Steiner, who notes both Magnussen and Hulkenberg are remaining positive about the situation and working hard to resolve.
“I must admit, I’m actually very happy with both Kevin and Nico about how they’re an integral part in trying to sort the problem and find the solution, how we tackle the short and long-term fix for this, and they’re both very positive,” said Steiner. “Not about the performance in the race right now but positive that we can get out of the problem we have now.”
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