14/09/2023
NEWS STORY
Haas team boss, Guenther Steiner has revealed that the American outfit is targeting its biggest ever upgrade for its home race at Austin next month.
In a bid to move further up the grid - not just this season but in 2024 - the American outfit is seeking to follow Red Bull's route whilst working increasingly closely with Ferrari.
While single-lap pace has led to some impressive qualifying performances it always falls apart on race day, with tyre deg a particular weakness of the team's 2023 contender.
Consequently the team is eyeing Red Bull's solution in terms of downwash, a move that will require a significant overhaul of the car, something that can only be done as it looks ahead to next season.
"It's going that direction," Steiner told reporters in Singapore. "I think we got out whatever we could to go to the downwash option. I think we cannot push it any further."
Though taking the path forged by Red Bull, as a technical partner, Haas will actually takes its lead from Ferrari in terms of a solution.
"Obviously we need to go close to them, but the side impact structure, we could have put that somewhere else if we wanted but we put it very similar because that concept we are running right now asked for the side impact structure to be where it is," said the Italian.
"The plan was to have more upgrades with the concept we have now," he admitted. "But because we didn't find performance, we didn't... we didn't introduce upgrades this year because we didn't want to make them... there was no performance.
"It's no point to make car parts if the car doesn't go faster," he added. "So because we haven't spent that money, we can now spend it on this big upgrade."
Asked if the forthcoming upgrade is the biggest the team has ever performed, Steiner admitted: "Yes!
"We weren't sure, should we do it this year or not," he continued. "Next year we go full that route, so we had to say 'let's do something this year so at least learn as much as possible on that concept, and maybe learn something which we can then integrate into next year's car as well'."