Formula 1 United States GP
Steiner: Revised Haas F1 car not good enough yet
Guenther Steiner admits that the revised Haas Formula 1 car is still not good enough and the team will have to get more out of it in the Mexican GP.
Adam Cooper
Edited: Oct 24, 2023, 4:54 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Haas brought a huge package of upgrades to Austin, and like others who faced the challenge of only having FP1 in which to hone updated cars, the team struggled to optimise the VF-23.
Following the Saturday sprint the team took the decision to take both cars out of parc ferme and switch to a higher downforce rear wing, in essence to stop the rear sliding and protect the tyres.
That meant that Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg had to abandon their respective 14th and 16th slots on the grid and start Sunday’s main race from the pit lane.
Hulkenberg finished 13th on the road and Magnussen 16th, with both drivers gaining spots in the final results from the disqualifications of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.
Steiner insisted that changing the cars and sacrificing track position at the start was a good call.
"I mean, today was better than yesterday,” he told Motorsport.com after the flag. “Thank God we made the decision to go out of the pit lane with the changed aero set up.
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23, Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-23
“Obviously, we now need to look at data and stuff like this to have a better starting position in Mexico with the setup.
“We were a little bit behind, knowing that we only had one hour. It's not like saying that we did a bad job, it was just very tight, such a big upgrade, and going in here.
“But we knew the risk, and we took the risk, but I think we know for sure a lot more now than we did before. And hopefully we can put it into performance in Mexico.”
Steiner said that it’s hard to assess the potential of the new package after just one weekend.
"I don't know how good it is yet,” he said. “At least both drivers could race some people today, because the last five [races] we were just being overtaken, and at least we could overtake some people today. Are we good enough? No. We need to get more out of it. At least we're moving in the right direction.”
Magnussen agreed that changing the rear wing had paid off, although during the race he still complained about the rear sliding.
“I think it helped,” said the Dane when asked by Motorsport.com. “Not enough. We still weren't competitive enough, of course, but it helped. And, yeah, we'll look into things and see what we think.
“As I said, we helped the problem. I think we had a better race than we would have if we hadn't changed. Even though we were P14, starting from the pitlane I still think we had a better race.”
Read Also:
Formula 1Verstappen’s top 10 F1 wins ranked: 2022 Belgian GP, 2017 Malaysian GP and more
Formula 1Why Russell struggled at "bogey" F1 track COTA
Formula 1Perez doesn’t need second place to keep F1 seat, says Red Bull
Regarding the update package, he said: “I'm still curious to see how it evolves when we get to play with the setup a little more and optimise things better.
“We still go to different types of tracks. And we know that things can be up and down. And things can be different at the next race. Mexico is a very unique race as well, with the ambient pressure and all that. So yeah, let's see.”
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article McLaren: No more "magic" developments in the pipeline for rest of F1 2023
Next article Upgrades gave Hamilton more confidence 'to throw Mercedes F1 car' around
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Adam Cooper
RB: Tsunoda “mentally on a different level” in 2024
Formula 1
Formula 1
Japanese GP
Apr 10, 2024
RB: Tsunoda “mentally on a different level” in 2024
Andretti planning F2 and F3 entries to promote US talent to F1 team
Formula 1
Formula 1 Apr 10, 2024
Andretti planning F2 and F3 entries to promote US talent to F1 team
Andretti F1 team formally opens new Silverstone facility
Formula 1
Formula 1 Apr 10, 2024
Andretti F1 team formally opens new Silverstone facility
Latest news
Las Vegas GP reveals neon sign-inspired trophy design
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Las Vegas GP
17 min
Las Vegas GP reveals neon sign-inspired trophy design
IndyCar 2026 season review: Juncos Hollinger Racing
IndyCar
Indy IndyCar 20 min
IndyCar 2026 season review: Juncos Hollinger Racing
Indy NXT unveils 15-race 2027 schedule with four doubleheaders
Indy NXT
IndL Indy NXT 25 min
Indy NXT unveils 15-race 2027 schedule with four doubleheaders
Why aerodynamics will become "even more important" under 2027 MotoGP regulations
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Qatar GP
1 h
Why aerodynamics will become "even more important" under 2027 MotoGP regulations
Feature
Discover prime content
Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s
Formula 1
By Kevin Turner
Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe