Despite a difficult double-header at Silverstone, Haas F1 Team are happy with the pace they are managing to extract from their sluggish 2020 challenger – the VF-20.
Team Principal Guenther Steiner, whilst not at all content with the pace, is somewhat satisfied with the efforts Haas are going to in order to make the best of a bad car.
“How we are performing at the moment, I think this is the best we can get out of it. Setting some highlights is good for the team and it’s good for the fans – they can still see that we’re there and we’re fighting every moment of a weekend. “
Talking about the next race in Spain, Steiner said that he is ‘looking forward to it’ as the data gathered from Winter Testing can be compared to that of now – allowing the team to more concisely assess the progress of their car.
“Having data is always very good, and we’ve got a lot of data from Spain from both testing and racing there. The good thing is we can go back and compare our performance, and what we achieved in February, to what we’re achieving now. So, it’s good to have something to compare. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Spain has been one of the tracks where we’ve been fairly successful as a team”- Magnussen
After a string of frustrating finishes in Silverstone, Kevin Magnussen is eager to digest the data to get a clearer picture of the car’s evolution – or devolution – in Barcelona.
The Dane acknowledges that although temperature will play a big factor in some aspects of the car, there is something to be learned from Winter Testing, and the team will be massively helped if they can understand the journey the VF-20 has taken over the past six months.
“I think it’s going to be interesting. We looked stronger in winter testing in Spain than we’ve been in these first five races. Hopefully that will be the case again when we get back to Barcelona.”
Magnussen is also hungry to earn more points in the next race; he has had a history of respectable finishes previously and so he is confident that the team’s spirit and hard work will pay off in the Spanish sun.
“I’m hoping we can qualify slightly better and have better pace. It would be great to get a few more points if we could. We’re going to go for it in Barcelona.”
“The car has matured, and we’ve evolved from where we were”- Grosjean
With a history of strong finishes in Spain, Romain Grosjean hopes to prolong his good memories there this weekend. The Frenchman secured fourth place in 2012 and whilst he would love to replicate that performance, it’s obvious the car is incapable of performing at that kind of level.
Grosjean believes the car will be ‘very different’ to Winter Testing due to the high summer temperatures, but he understands it’s worth a look at the data to analyse the change.
“I think we need to see the weather, but it’s most likely that it’s going to be hot. It will therefore be very different from winter testing. I guess we’ll have a look, just out of interest, but my feeling is that it’s going to be very different.”
“I’ve had some good races there. We all know the track very well, but obviously we always try to do the best that we can.”
