The 2023 Formula One season is almost upon us. There is a lot of hype for the official presentation of the Ferrari SF-23 car, which will take place tomorrow, as well as for the cars of rival teams. Some of them decided to simply present their new liveries, others are engaged in highly secret shakedowns while Alfa Romeo and Haas wanted to show their true racing cars for the 2023 Formula 1 championship, which takes place in less than a month with the Bahrain Grand Prix.
With one day ahead of the Ferrari F1 car launch, Haas team principal Günther Steiner granted an exclusive interview for the Italian website FormulaUnoAnalisiTecnica.
The motorsport engineer and team manager who holds dual Italian and American citizenship addressed various topics in view of the next Formula 1 campaign and also aspects that in the long term will be the subject of inevitable controversy. Although this is the period of the season in which the communication strategy of the team principals is historically limited and based on cautiousness, the character and frankness of the manager from Merano did in fact provide very interesting news. The step forward in terms of performance for the VF-22 compared to the 2021 performances was by far the most evident on the grid, also reworded by the historic first pole position secured by Kevin Magnussen in the qualifying session for the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The American team’s objectives for the season that is about to begin are clear: “The target is certainly to improve on last year. We were surprised but perhaps we could have done a little better. In terms of position, I’d say seventh/sixth place in the constructors’ championship”. These were the comments of the Italian manager, in which he expressed his regret for various missed opportunities that could have improved the overall result of the team last season, especially in the constructors’ classification.
The heading “missed opportunities” is inevitably associated with the fragility of the Ferrari 066/7 power unit introduced last season.
The strong technological link between the American team and the Prancing Horse is such that a good part of the sporting results depend on how good the parts provided by the Maranello team are. In this sense, Günther Steiner places a lot of confidence in the “trobuleshooting and solving” activity carried out by the men of the Ferrari engine department.
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A few months ago, at the Bandini award, Günther Steiner was able to reveal a feedback from Mattia Binotto according to which the first simulations of the 2023 power unit had shown the enormous potential of the revised and corrected 066/7 power unit. A lot of time has passed since then, however the Haas team principal received further reassurances on the reliability front of the turbo hybrid unit made in Maranello:
”It has been reported to me that the reliability issues which the power unit had last year have been resolved. I trust in this and we are of course very happy because last year we had to homologate 6 engines instead of three”. If the track confirms what was seen in the simulations, the American team, together with Alfa Romeo, will be able to minimize the risk of penalties which was clear in 2022 and have greater consistency over the race weekends given the fact that the engine should be able to use more power.
The change at the helm of Scuderia Ferrari could somehow “destabilize” the close technological link between the Haas F1 team and the historic Italian team. The Italian manager is a highly appreciated figure within the paddock and has always had cordial working relations with his colleagues.
In this case, the link with Mattia Binotto and Frederic Vasseur has always been confidential and marked by mutual respect: “I am a friend of both Fred [Vasseur] and Mattia [Binotto]” – pointed out the Italian – American manager who, with regard to the challenge accepted by Frederic Vassuer, confirmed the clear objective of the French manager:
“I had a meeting with Fred but we didn’t talk about the challenge that awaits him. Certainly for Fred it’s something he wanted to do, work at Ferrari, and try to win the world championship. Certainly this is his goal. And I wish him good luck because if he wins the world championship we too will go very fast because many components of their car are also on ours ” – he concluded, as reported by FormulaUnoAnalisiTecnica.
Günther Steiner is aware that a good part of Haas’s ambitions are linked to the success of the SF-23. A performance that the subjects involved hope will finally be a win-win at the highest levels in relation to the respective targets in the 2023 Formula 1 season.
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