Haas to make sure difficulties of 2019 “doesn’t happen next year”

F1 News

17 October 2019 at 18:26
  • Bevan Youl

Haas F1 team boss Gunther Steiner has said that they are to make sure that their difficulties of 2019 “doesn’t happen” in 2020 after suffering a poor season compared to 2018.

Haas finished 2018 fifth in the constructors championship behind Renault by 29 points, setting themselves up to challenge at the top of the midfield in 2019.
 
But things didn’t go to plan as the American team sit ninth on 28 points 17 races in, seven behind Alfa Romeo Racing and only ahead of Williams who have one point to their name.
 
Steiner said to Autosport when asked about resolving the issues: "Not short-term. We know where we are, why we are where we are, but to fix it is a different issue. And I don't know if we can get on top of it this year consistently.

"It's only four races left anyway, but if we get one or other good day... It's not like I could tell you the next two races we are bringing an upgrade kit which will solve the problem.

"We just need to make sure that this doesn't happen next year, because it is quite consuming."

Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen have consistently struggled to get their tyres working properly throughout the season during races, showing some signs of pace in qualifying.

"We now know that these things happen, and they are never nice," he added.

"You go in the race, always knowing that at some stage we will have an issue with the tyre, because we cannot generate the heat we need to make the tyre work.

"It sounds almost too simple not to have a solution for it, but that is what is happening.

"So even if we can qualify on one lap normally decently - going into Q3 is still an achievement in my opinion, but we cannot hold on in the race, because of this reason.

"We just cannot keep the heat in the tyres."