The Haas F1 Team are hoping to replicate their brilliant debut to F1 in 2016, when they take to the track, a seasons more experience under their belts, in 2017.
Pre-season testing did not go to plan for the American squad last year, but it was a different story entirely when it came to the first few races of the season, when Haas finished sixth with driver Romain Grosjean in their first ever grand prix.
They followed that strong result up with a fifth at the next round in Bahrain, and could not have hoped for a much better start to life in F1. It is that sort of performance that Team Principal Guenther Steiner is aiming for again this season, and definitely believes it is achievable, as the Italian explained to Racer.com recently.
“Yeah, absolutely. We will try to do what we did last year but better and hopefully we can have the same if not a better result.
“To be honest it will be very difficult – I’m aware of that – but if you don’t try then you don’t get.”
Haas enjoyed a strong relationship with Scuderia Ferrari last season, utilizing their wind tunnel as well as receiving parts and engines from the Italian squad, whilst employing Dallara to produce the car’s chassis, and although they will have less assistance from Ferrari this time around, the set-up has not actually changed that much according to Steiner.
“No, it’s very similar to last year, very similar. I would go back to last year and point out that what we did for the first time actually worked very well. Everybody did what they said what they were going to do.
“We are just making little adjustments; we want to make our lives easier and better but we are just replicating some things we did last year.
“I hope it gets smoother and more efficient than last year because we have got a year under our belt with our partners.”
It has been so far so good for the Haas F1 Team in the 2017 pre-season, having completed and passed the majority of crash tests so far, and Steiner believes they are on target for the start of the new season.
“We’ve passed the chassis crash tests within the last week, that is all done. There’s still some like the nose one to do. If you don’t pass that one, it’s much easier to recoup than if you fail a chassis test.”
