Haas team boss Guenther Steiner had a candid conversation about how his team failed to build any real momentum over the 2022 season despite having started off on the right track.
Kevin Magnussen seemed to be in the right feel of things as he managed to pick up three points finishes in the opening four race weekends. This added to optimism among the camp that they had got their challenger right.
At that point, Haas was considered a formidable competitor in the midfield battle.
However, it didn’t take long for this title to elude the American outfit.
Steiner feels that critics who have argued that their early pace was “unsustainable” have not assessed the situation accurately.
“No, I wouldn’t say it wasn’t sustainable,” Steiner said.
“We started very well and then, for one reason or another, we lost a little bit of momentum. You can say, there was not one thing that was wrong.”
Haas, it can be argued, suffered as a result of a poor relationship with FIA.
This is something Magnussen will attest to, given the fact that he was shown the black-and-orange flag many times despite being in a competitive position and the damage on his car was something that probably didn’t require a change.
What did Steiner say?
Steiner found FIA’s late acceptance of this fact quite annoying, voicing his concerns after the governing body amended its rules in the second half of the season.
“How are we supposed to react to that?” Steiner said.
“And then, by the way, after 15 races it was decided not to use it [the black-and-orange flag] anymore, so it was things like this.
“Then a few times, with the strategy, we didn’t do the right thing. Sometimes we were also a little bit off with the setup, with this bouncing effect.
“It was up and down. It was not just down because then we came back just before the summer break, and after the summer break we had a few good races.
“Put it this way, compared to last year [2021], we made a good improvement.
“But did we get everything out of it, what was available this year? By no means
“When you are two years behind, you just need to again get used to being in this position.
“It’s a weird thing, and then you plan and you try not to make mistakes but it takes some time that it gets all natural.”
Haas will be proud that it at least managed to climb up the table and pick up 37 points.
It was a significant improvement to 2021, when the team failed to register a single point for all its efforts.
Steiner looked back on Magnussen’s pole position at Interlagos and believed it was the best day of the campaign for his team.
“The job we did in qualifying in Brazil was perfect,” Steiner said.
“What can you do differently? Nothing.
“It should be like this all the time but it’s not achievable. It’s just for us in a moment.”
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