Guenther Steiner opened up on the impact of Simone Resta on Haas’ 2022 F1 car, with a solidified technical team, working out at Maranello.
The relationship between Haas and Scuderia Ferrari started when Gene Haas decided to bank on his successes in NASCAR and join F1, few years back. And it only strengthened when Mick Schumacher joined the American licensed team, this year.
Two long term members of Ferrari moved with the F2 champion Schumacher: Resta, former Chief Designer, and Jock Clear, FDA Driver Coach – while the former is working directly with Haas on the 2022 car, the latter is only helping the German in professional capacity.
Stressing on Resta, who had a stint with Sauber before moving back to Ferrari and now joining Haas, Steiner noted of the impact he has had on their 2022 project, and pushing to give the drivers a competitive car to fight in the midfield.
“Yes, Resta has not only solidified, but he has set up everything from new this year [in our technical department],” said Steiner, when asked by FormulaRapida.net. “Last year, lots of people left us, we had a lot of people laid off and furloughed too, and he had a big job on his hands to resurrect it but he did and the technical team now is as good as it ever was.
“The impact on this year’s car is very little because we didn’t do a lot, now it is too late anyways, so obviously not a big impact. For 2022, there is a lot of impact from him and his group, not only him. It’s his group which is working very hard on the 2022 car. Hopefully next year we can talk about getting into Q2 and also into Q3,” summed up Steiner.
Ahead of the French GP, Steiner added of Resta’s work at Maranello base, where Haas is working on their 2022 car. The Italian had good words for his good work, as they are in constant touch to share as much knowledge, they can, to improve.
As for Clear, as noted above, the English engineer is still part of Ferrari, but he is working with Schumacher closely to improve his skills. “Jock is in charge now of the junior program at Ferrari, obviously Mick being part of the program, he looks after Mick, he speaks with him,” said Steiner.
“Jock worked with Michael, so they have a good connection between them.” Clear has a lot of experience being a performance and race engineer for former F1 World Champions such as Jacques Villeneuve, Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher, and Lewis Hamilton.
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The story was written by Lorenzo Liegi