Guenther Steiner says it will be important for the Haas F1 Team to learn from racing around the slower circuits on the calendar, such as Monaco, to be quick this weekend around the Marina Bay Street Circuit for the Singapore Grand Prix.
Haas currently sit ninth in the Constructors’ Championship heading into Singapore, but when they raced in Monaco earlier this season, Romain Grosjean was able to bring the car home inside the points, the first time in four seasons that the team secured a top ten finish in the principality.
Steiner, the team principal at Haas, hopes that Grosjean and team-mate Kevin Magnussen can be points contenders this weekend in Singapore, with the anticipation that the knowledge from the previous low-speed events will be put to good use.
“The challenges of the track lie in that it’s low speed,” admits Steiner. “It’s more like Monte Carlo – it’s a slower circuit. You have to take the lessons learned at places like that and try to get the best out of the car.
“Night races, especially Singapore, are very cool. Being in the city and racing completely at night – it’s fantastic. I think it adds a lot to the show. The time difference, being at night, it allows a lot of people around the world to watch it.”
Steiner says staying on European time for the Singapore Grand Prix weekend is beneficial to the engineers, mechanics and drivers, allowing them to work at a normal time without adapting to a different time zone, something they will be doing more often across the remaining seven races of the season.
“It’s cooled down a bit most of the days when they’re working because it’s gone into the night, but staying on the same time zone helps them because we have to deal with so many changes over the year,” said Steiner. “If they can sleep during the day, then for sure it’s an advantage for them. It shouldn’t be as difficult as if it was held during the day there – it’s easier.
“It’s very difficult because there are a lot of changes in time zones. For me, luckily, I have two less because of Mexico and America, and I guess Brazil is very little change also. For the team though, to be coming out of Europe, there are a lot of changes.
“You’re getting toward the end of the season and it’s just like everybody’s a little burned out. We’ve done it before, we’ll do it this year, and next year we’re looking forward to 22 races.”
