Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner explains where the team stands after four races from the 2017 season as well as the continuing drama with the brakes.
With four races in the books, where does Haas F1 Team stand in relation to its midfield counterparts?
“It’s difficult to say. One weekend you’re on top of it, then another weekend – like in Sochi – you’re at the bottom of it. It’s so tight the midfield. Hopefully, it stays tight all year and we can go back to being on top of the midfield.”
Your frustration after the Russian Grand Prix was evident. Is that due in large part to the potential your cars have this year, and when that potential isn’t realized, it’s an opportunity lost?
“Absolutely. Every chance not realized is a lost opportunity. You always have chances. We had one in Australia, we lost it. In Sochi, our qualifying was not fantastic, but again, Kevin [Magnussen] made a good start, but then we got the penalty because he drove the wrong way back onto the track and we ended up 13th. At Sochi, there is very little overtaking taking place. It’s difficult to move forward.”
Much was made about the new cars for this season as they are demonstrably faster with more downforce and much wider tires. Despite the amount of change introduced this year, is there a feeling of normalcy with these cars after four races?
“It’s like we don’t even remember the old car. It’s a strange thing, but time moves so fast in F1. We’re four races in and we’ve forgotten about what we did last year. Technology moves so fast. It’s quite amazing.”
Brakes remain a topic for Haas F1 Team. Explain the swap back-and-forth between Brembo and Carbon Industri (CI) at Russia and what the plan is for Barcelona.
“We started off with CI brakes in Sochi. We weren’t getting enough cooling for them, and if you don’t cool them enough, you overheat the brake itself and the pedal gets long. Also, the wear is very high. We looked into it to see if we could survive a race, but we realized we could not. Therefore, the decision was taken to go back onto the Brembo. As it stands now, we will race Brembo in Barcelona.
“To figure out how we can fix the problem will take a bit, but we will get there. It isn’t an easy problem to solve. We will take our time. We know what we’ve got after our Bahrain test with CI brakes, and after Sochi in FP1 and FP2, as well as what we need to do and what needs to get done, but it will take a little bit of time.”
When it comes to the different brake packages from Brembo and Carbon Industri, what are the drivers saying about the feel of each package?
“Romain [Grosjean] was pretty happy with the latest iteration of Brembo. He said he’s ok with it. Kevin liked the CI better because the bite is better. He just has a better feeling with the CI brakes. Now we need to get the CI working and see where we stand before coming to the absolute conclusion. I’ll be happy when we can check this off of our list.
“Everybody needs to understand that this is a very sophisticated brake system. It is not easy to fix. The obvious question, and rightly people ask, is that it cannot be this difficult to fix a brake. It actually is. It isn’t easy. This is because they’re highly complicated technologies, they’re highly advanced. When you change from one to the other, you encounter issues you’re not aware of until you try it properly. Without testing during the season, you need to do it in FP1 and FP2. You always have to wait two weeks to do something. So you can never go and do a proper test and do modifications. You always have to fit it in somehow. It compromises your testing, and that’s why it takes so long. It’s not that we’re not working hard. Our people are very competent and can do this, it just takes time.”
Last year, finding the proper working range of the tires proved difficult. After racing at four very different venues in four very different environments, how is it to find the proper working range of this year’s tires?
“It’s the same. It’s just a wider tire, but you still need to get it to work. I think our biggest problem, as we experienced in Sochi along with a few other teams, we just couldn’t get grip. Sochi’s surface is very slippery, very smooth, so we were a little out. Kevin could deal with it, but Romain struggled with it and we couldn’t find a window for him where the tire worked. We weren’t on our own, other people had the same issue. But outside of Sochi, I think we’ve made a good step since last year to get in the window.”
You racked up a lot of laps at Barcelona earlier this year during winter testing. Do you have a higher level of comfortability with the car at Barcelona because you know what to expect?
“It’s the same and everyone’s done the same level of testing, and a lot of people have done the same mileage. I think we know what we can do, but we don’t know what the other teams will bring to Barcelona. As we said before, the midfield is very tight and you could be anywhere. You could be from eighth to 16th, anywhere in there.”
The data Haas F1 Team had from last year is largely out of date because this year’s car is so different. But Barcelona allows you to have current data thanks to all the time you invested in testing. Granted, all of the other teams have 2017 data from testing too, but how valuable is it to arrive at a grand prix with pertinent data secured only two months ago compared to a year ago?
“The car will be updated since the Barcelona test. So you have a different car, different temperatures and the tires will work in a different window. We have more information on Barcelona than the other tracks, but that doesn’t make you comfortable.”
Barcelona marks the first European race on the Formula One schedule. Typically, many teams bring updates to their cars for the Spanish Grand Prix. Does Haas F1 Team have any updates for its cars and what are your expectations with these updates?
“We’re bringing our first extensive update kit to Barcelona, as all the other modifications we’ve done have been very small. We hope it works like everything else that has come out of the wind tunnel and is very reliable in terms of the correlation from wind tunnel to track. We hope to make a step forward. There are always unknowns with a new update kit, therefore we don’t want to disclose too much and be too hopeful. Some people might notice – it will be visible – but not straight away. It’s nothing big on the outside.”
Between the updates all the teams are expected to bring and the collective knowledge learned about the current car, how different is the Spanish Grand Prix weekend from when teams were in Barcelona two months ago for testing?
“Barcelona is the first European race of the season, so a lot of people are in attendance. We have got a lot of things to do. In the two 90-minute sessions on Friday, your test program needs to be in there. If you miss the time, you miss the testing. It always puts additional stress on people and on the drivers to not do anything wrong. If you do the smallest thing wrong, you don’t utilize the time that’s available. That’s no different than any other place, but compared to when we were at Barcelona for winter testing, there’s just a little bit more pressure.”
Did you know, Spain is the first race of 2017 in which everything we need to go racing will arrive via our transporters.#SpanishGP pic.twitter.com/DPTR4QNpKi
— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) 9 May 2017
