Haas are looking to bounce back from the major setback that the team received on race day in Melbourne where both their drivers had to retire because of grave mistakes on part of the pit crew.
And while the end result was a marker reading ‘zero’ on the score board, Haas did manage to raise a lot of eyebrows with their speed during qualifying, managing to out perform Ricciardo in the Red Bull.
The risen eyebrows had a hint of suspicion in them, seeing a fellow rival having miraculously risen to be recognised amongst the top few.
The Haas-Ferrari partnership had come under scrutiny with a number of teams asking the FIA to launch an investigation into the intricacies of the relationship and if in any way Ferrari was helping Haas scale the heights that it never knew existed.
Haas though have come out and completely refuted all allegations made against them, reaffirming that the team has been working completely under the FIA regulations.
“Everybody is allowed to have an opinion,” said Steiner.
“Some people have an opinion, which I think is based on no facts. It does not have a lot of value to me.
“I think the whole of Haas F1 Team can be proud of the work done between last year and over the winter to produce the VF-18 and get it into its competitive condition. It’s merit to them. They can be proud. If people have an issue, fine with me.
“We report what we are doing, like everybody else, to the FIA. That’s why I’m more than confident we are not doing anything wrong. I’m perfectly fine with how we do business.
“We design our own aero, as per the regulations, and yes, we use mechanical parts from Ferrari, but everybody’s known that for the past two years. We are well above board, and happy to be where we are.” he added.
The pit stop failures have hit the team hard and Haas have accepted that they did not quite put in the required number of practice sessions in in order to perfect it.
However, Haas now feel ready with respect to their pit stop practice.
I think if we achieve a good result in Bahrain, we will forget about Melbourne,” he said. “If we don’t, we’ll dwell over what happened in Australia until the time we have a fantastic result, or time gets us over it. The aim is to do everything right and come home with a good result.
“I would say I’m still cautiously optimistic. I would never be arrogant and say, ‘Oh we will do the same in Bahrain,’ but, for sure, we will try to do the same.
“The car showed speed in Barcelona and Melbourne. There is a point, maybe after China, where we will really know where we are.” Steiner said.
