22 October 2023 , 02:18
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Guenther Steiner said he is "not very happy" with the way his newly-upgraded Haas cars have performed so far in Austin.
It is the American team's second home race of three this season, but this trip to Texas in particular means so much to them. Not only are they racing on US soil, but they have a car which could help them to finally be more competitive in the hunt for points.
Or so they thought. A massive upgrade and a change of the car's entire concept has, so far, yielded little reward. Both cars failed to get out of the first section of the Sprint Shootout while they also lacked pace in the short-form race later on Saturday.
Nico Hulkenberg gained one place to finish 15th while team-mate Kevin Magnussen dropped to 18th. Speaking afterwards, team principal Steiner admitted his concern over the lack of impact so far.
"It didn't go to plan today," he said. "We've got more work to do but, initially, we're not very happy with what's happened, so we have to see how we tackle tomorrow.
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"We found a few things and went in the wrong direction, but it's difficult to jump to a conclusion after one practice, two qualifying sessions and one short race. But at the moment, we have to find more as the upgrade has not done what we expected."
As he alluded to, the problem may simply lie in the set-up of the cars rather than the upgrades themselves. An entire revamp means they have no data on how the cars perform, and a Sprint weekend means they had only one hour of practice to try to get the cars into the best operating window they could find.
Haas also have a patriotic one-off livery for the Austin race (AP)That is a reason for optimism and, while Magnussen sounded a little glum in his post-Sprint interview, Hulkenberg remains more optimistic. "It feels like the first real running with the car, to be honest, because in practice there's so many things going on," said the German.
"Then, there were just two qualifying sessions which were also short, just two runs each time, or less. It's good to get some proper mileage with it, some long-run data and some feel for it. Obviously, it doesn't look too good right now, but there's more for us to analyse and understand and more to discover with this package. At a Sprint weekend, it's difficult to explore that and unlock it."
And Magnussen added: "It wasn't a great Sprint, the pace dropped off a lot, so we'll investigate tonight and assess what we think. We can't change anything for tomorrow, so it is what it is and we'll see what we can do."