Haas boss Guenther Steiner on the team's much anticipated Red Bull-style upgrade it will be bringing in Austin
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner recently spoke about his team bringing an upgrade package to the 2023 F1 USA GP that is inspired by Red Bull's RB19. This is quite major news, mainly because Haas uses Ferrari's power unit and many other parts inspired by the Italian team.
Speaking about Haas' development journey throughout 2023, Steiner stated how the team was not moving forward in terms of performance when it was using SF-23 as inspiration for the bodywork. So Haas has finally decided to move away from Ferrari's concept and try out the reigning world champions' car concept.
"That was our biggest problem with the concept we have now; we couldn't find any performance any more. We developed the whole year, and there was nothing there. At some stage, you need to do something different, and we could not keep on banging our heads against the wall trying, while the other teams kept on finding gains," Steiner said.
Guenther Steiner also gave an example of McLaren and how the British team changed its car quite a lot to extract great performance. Haas will be doing something similar in the latter stages of the 2023 F1 season and developing its 2024 car accordingly.
"McLaren changed the system like this, and they found something. At some stage, you need to change the concept and face reality. The concept of the car will change going that direction [downwash]. You're limited with your chassis and a few other things, but we are trying to go to the downwash shape now as everybody else has done," Steiner added.
German media criticize Guenther Steiner over Haas' stagnance
While speaking to the German wing of Sky recently, former F1 driver Timo Glock bashed the American team and its poor development trajectory. He also stated that team principal Guenther Steiner needs to give some answers as to why Haas is struggling so much.
Glock also supported Nico Hulkenberg's comments on the team's struggles and stated:
“As far as Haas is concerned, I have to ask myself the question: Have they not learned anything from the wind tunnel? You would have to ask Haas team boss Guenther Steiner where all the major improvements are. Nico Hulkenberg is right to criticise this. Nico wants to move forward and sees that there is only stagnation at the moment. It is absolutely his right to make this clear to the team.”
Haas is currently eighth in the constructors' championship with only 11 points. In contrast, Red Bull is currently leading the table with a whopping 583 points.