Boss admits Haas F1 may have started 2018 car too early
- Published on 02 Nov 2017 12:11
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- By: Rob Veenstra
Gunther Steiner said only time will tell if Haas' decision to abandon the 2017 car project quite early was the right one. The American team's boss made an early call this year to move the focus to the 2018 car, which is hurting performance at the end of this season.
"We took a decision to change focus to the 2018 car because we wanted to make some fundamental changes that we could not transfer 100 per cent from this car," he told Ekstra Bladet newspaper. But Steiner acknowledges that the project shift from 2017 to 2018 may actually have occurred too early.
"We stopped a bit early, in hindsight," he said. "Should we have done that? I don't know. The verdict will only come in February when we test -- whether it was worth it or not. Right now we have a nice wind tunnel model with a lot of numbers, but I don't know what the teams that further developed their 2017 car can carry over to their 2018 car. We will only find out when we see them all on the track," Steiner added.
Like all the 2018 cars, Haas' next machine will have to be fitted with 'Halo', but Steiner said the team has not been focused on track testing the device in free practice this year. "To be honest, until next year, we have other priorities for practice other than Halo," he said. (GMM)
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Replies (3)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Maybe, but they still have decent points, so they'll still get decent cash for the next season, and if they really begun that early they should in theory have a good shot at performing well next year.
Orchide
Posts: 82
Do they get full payment this year?
Barron
Posts: 625
But all this is smoke & mirrors and the kind of language a full constructor would use. At best, Haas makes small suspension parts, Dallara & Ferrari make the rest so what he is saying is they stopped “buying” new parts for the 2017 car. This is the problem with this business model, you’re always going to be on the back foot and your competitors can continue to add a stream of development parts while you are twiddling your thumbs waiting for UBS to arrive. They’ve done really well this year considering but next year will be the same - they'll run out of development half way through the season. For Haas, he has to consider whether he wants to continue like this or become a full fledged constructor especially if a $150 million cap is put on the season.