Guenther Steiner gives insight into Haas overhaul with ‘big upgrades’ on the horizon

Guenther Steiner has laid out what Haas fans can expect when a “big” upgrade package comes to their car at the United States Grand Prix.

哈斯商学院今年比赛享受,有三家to mark their arrival Stateside, the team are preparing a number of upgrades to be fitted to the VF-23 for the race in Austin.

With two more races to before then, Steiner has detailed what is coming in the pipeline.

Haas moving VF-23 bodywork closer to other teams

While Haas and in particular Nico Hülkenberg have impressed in qualifying this year, their performance has come undone on Sunday when the car has shown a tendency to eat through tyres quicker than any other constructor. In Monza, the team finished 17th and 18th giving them many questions to answer.

Ahead of last weekend’s race in Singapore, Steiner suggested they had a better understanding of what went wrong.

“I think we understand not fully the issues a little bit, this car is still always a surprise,” the Italian-American said. “I think we know why we were in Monza where we didn’t want to be and obviously we are working hard to get out of that hole – but it’s not only Monza.

“I mean, Monza, obviously it highlighted more because it’s a high-speed track and that is our worst place always to be on the high-speed tracks. So, low downforce, we are just weaker than we are normally – and we are not very strong when we are at our best.

“It’s just that we struggle this year a little bit. I mean, we started off, it was OK and then couldn’t make any progress, performance-wise. We just couldn’t find any performance. Therefore, we didn’t bring upgrades because there was nothing to be upgraded because what we found wasn’t any better. So, we had to make a complete U-turn and go a different direction.

“And that’s what we did: we decided before the summer break to do that and now we bring something for Austin, a big upgrade. For us, a big upgrade.

“To also go in the direction we want to go… or we are going next year, not ‘we want to go’, we are already going that way. And just to learn as much as possible, and hopefully bring some performance for the last five races.

“We need to see what it does but also to understand where we are going next year a little bit better, because what we have got now, we just don’t know what the car is doing from weekend to weekend.”

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Naturally when one team excels under new regulations, their rivals will soon start to converge on their design and that is exactly what has happened with Red Bull since 2022. Haas are set to become the latest team to adopt a new bodywork design in the Red Bull mould and that is what will be revealed come the race in Austin.

“I wouldn’t call it a B-spec because we don’t touch the suspension or the gearbox, nothing like this,” Steiner said of the upcoming upgrades.

“We go with the bodywork style like almost all the other teams have got. At least seven of them have got. So, we go that direction and just start a little bit afresh with the concept, which will hopefully get some performance out over time, which we couldn’t get with this concept we have got now, we couldn’t find any performance anymore.”

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