“I’m not saying that we have given up”- Guenther Steiner has said that his team aspires to do its best even if they had to make compromises.
Haas started their Formula 1 career on an impressive note, but the past two seasons have been pretty tough for the American team, as they finished 9th in 2019 and 2020.
Haas’ boss Guenther Steiner has confessed that they started developing their car late, costing them a huge hit on their 2021 product. But, it doesn’t mean that they have given up.
“I don’t know exactly what the other teams are coming up with,” he said. “Therefore, I wouldn’t call it a holding year. It is a transition year, and we always try to do our best.”
“And the car will be hopefully better than – in competition with the other cars of this year, obviously, because everybody or maybe not everybody but [some teams] lost some downforce because of the angulation change – but hopefully we can make some gains.”
“I’m not saying that we have given up. We never give up, but we started pretty late last year to develop, but as you said, we had some developments planned for the year, which they didn’t materialize, but we picked them up and put them in.”
We should be at an OK spot.
Haas then talked about the improvement in the power unit, which they receive by Ferrari, and thus he thinks he would be at an ok spot but would not be battling for the midfield.
“And then the engine, as I said before, it looks promising that the engine makes a good step up. So we should be in an OK spot, but will we be fighting in the top midfield? I don’t think so.”
“But we are not like going there and saying ‘we want definitely finish last’. That is not happening. I mean, that’s never happening as long as I will be here, you know.”
“You’re always trying to get every little bit out of it, you know. And we have got the rookie drivers, and we need to be aware of that. And they need to be aware of that not to overdo things or to try too hard because then you make mistakes.”
But in the end, I really look forward to going racing again, and with the view to get the best out what we can.”