Gunther Steiner, Haas Formula 1 team principal, believes last year campaign drained “a lot of energy” from the team. Nonetheless, he felt grateful for the the progress team managed to make.
Haas has announced the livery for VF-23 car for 2023 season on Tuesday. It hopes to have a more stable and reliable season this year following 2022 campaign.
The parted ways with driver, Nikita Mazepin and title sponsor Uralkali following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, it helped the team back on midfield fight.
Haas had struggled with its reliability, which led to eighth place on constructors championship. Kevin Magnessun replaced Mazepin which outperformed the original driver. He managed to win an F1 pole for the team.
Read More: Vasseur claims Ferrari has everything to win F1 title
Steiner told media regarding up and downs of 2022: “If you could have more equal [form], it would be better. But as long as you can have some highs, it’s good.
“It takes a lot of energy out of you, the ups and downs, because you have got these highs where you are flying, and you’ve got these lows where you need to recover. So it’s very difficult.
“But in the end, it’s better having a rollercoaster than having just downs like 2021.”
Haas finished last in 2021 and without a score because it opted to focus on 2022 car. The authorities had introduced new technical regulations for 2022.
The team opted for new drivers, Mazepin and F2 champion Mick Schumacher. Rookies could not offer much of help to revive the team’s hopes.
However, it has changed its approach this season. It has decided to replace Schumacher with Nico Hulkenberg, F1 veteran, while keeping Magenussen on board. The pair will be most experienced lineup combine on F1 grid with over 300 F1 starts.
Steiner has put faith in experience that probably will yield similar results throughout this year’s season.
“We know we can do it, we just need to do it consistently,” said Steiner.
“That’s what we are working on, and that is one of the reasons why we took an experienced driver. It’s not one thing to make it better, it’s a lot of little things.
“As a team, we have to improve: we have to improve processes, we have to get people the right job to do, get good people to do things. It’s a lot of small challenges to make this happen.
“You can see, if everything works, you are up. But if one of the things falls out, you are done. It’s a work in progress.”
