Steiner: Haas F1 must stabilize the current “bumpy road”

Haas had a very competitive car for much of the season, but it hasn’t scored any points since. Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen finished sixth and eighth in the Austrian GP in July. The American team currently sits eighth in the constructors’ championship.

Steiner thinks one of the issues is that having raced at the back of the field last year it has been more difficult for the team to make all the right choices and get the most out of the car more speed it had in 2022.

“We have sometimes been in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. “I attribute it to the fact that the last two years have been difficult, and you can’t come from this level where we were the last two years to suddenly come out with the best in the world.

“It will be a bit of a bumpy road, and we are going through this bumpy road, but we have to stabilize it at some point. This bumpy road is no longer acceptable. You can do this for a while.

“Going back up there, this year is like a second start for us, because last year we didn’t develop anything, we were racing where we were racing, the competition was not high.

“As I always say, the higher you go, the thinner the air, the more difficult it is for the drivers, for the team, for everyone. And every little bit counts.”

The recent Singapore GP was compromised for Haas by contact with a Red Bull and mercedescars the team wouldn’t have fought in 2021. Steiner acknowledged there were positives to that.

“We had incidents when we got passed the second time!” he joked about last season. “I see good in it. It’s frustrating, but it shows that I’m not negative about our performance, it’s just a little frustrating.

“We can’t expect to suddenly be where we were last year to go where everyone expects us to be. I think we can do better than we are. and we can make it happen.

Asked what the team could do to improve the situation, he replied: “I think we just have to think about how we approach everything in a bit more detail.

“I don’t think there’s a need to change a lot of personnel or anything. We may need to add a little more. But right now it’s more about regaining the confidence that we can still execute at this level. But these are things that can be learned.

“The most important thing is not to make the mistake a second time. It’s always the most important thing for me. You can make a mistake once you correct it, the second time it’s not good The third time, you’re an idiot in my opinion.

“So we have to do that one, and hopefully we don’t find any new mistakes that we’re going to make.”