Haas have endured a tough two years in Formula 1 in 2020 and 2021 but focused all their resources into making the 2022 car.
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Haas F1’s team principal Gunther Steiner says the team expects to be fighting for points in the upcoming 2022 season.
The American side have endured a tough two years. In 2020 they struggled to consistently finish in the points. And it was even worse in 2021.
Choosing to focus all of their resources on the 2022 car, Haas did the bare minimum to upgrade their car for 2021. The result was comfortably the slowest car on the grid – one that failed to score any points at all.
But Steiner, who signed rookies Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin for 2021, believes the two will now have a car that can compete with the others.
“The expectation is just to be able to fight for points and fight with the other drivers who are in Formula 1,” he said.
“With their rookie year, we were always very open that the expectations were not high. But that they had the opportunity to learn and to establish themselves in Formula 1.
“Now this year, we have to prove that we are on the right track with the drivers.
“What I see is we have had good cars, for example in ’18; even in ’16 and ’17 for a new team we had pretty good cars, you know? So, I just see similarities to that time.”
However, Steiner was quick to also downplay any unrealistic expectations. He said that while the work they’ve done has been good, it’s too early to tell just how well Haas will perform.
“That is the only thing I can judge the performance [on], what I expect from the car, and therefore I always say I’m cautiously optimistic because I see how Simone and his group developed the car over the last year, how hard they worked on it.
“And the results from the wind tunnel, the improvements they do each session… that makes me cautiously optimistic.
“But to say ‘we will be in the midfield’ – I don’t know,” added the Haas boss.
“I obviously have faith we will be there. I don’t know what the other ones are doing, so we have to wait a little bit longer. But I am pretty happy [with] what happened last year because we had two tough years.
“But what kept me going was actually what the people did in ’21 back in the design office and in the aero group.”
As things stand, the American team are the only one to have launched their 2022 cars. The next team to launch their new car will be Red Bull.
The 2021 constructor’s championship runners-up will break cover on the RB18 on February 9.
