Engine power is an issue at Haas this year, boss Gunther Steiner has admitted, as the loss of performance from all Ferrari-powered cars promoted speculation over the consequences that changes in F1’s power unit rules this year may have had for the team following their private settlement with the FIA.
With team owner Gene Haas yet to decide whether to keep racing, Haas boss Steiner admitted to Ekstra Bladet newspaper that the 2020 car “is in the slower half of the field”.
“First I would like to see how we do on tracks like in Hungary, where there are not many long straights and where engine power doesn’t matter so much,” he said.
It is widely believed that Ferrari’s power unit for 2020 has been badly affected by the engine legality saga of 2019 and subsequent highly controversial FIA agreement. Ahead of the third race of the coronavirus-affected season in Hungary, Steiner said: “We are hoping we look better, but we really do not know. In the Barcelona testing, we were faster compared to the competition than we were in Austria,” he added – “We will have to do the race in Hungary before we know how we stand. But it will not be an easy year for us.”
Regarding the possibility that Haas might offer a cockpit to Scuderia Ferrari German driver Sebastian Vettel for the 2021 Formula 1 season, Gunther Steiner answered: “At the moment he is probably checking what his opportunities are. But I have no idea of his thoughts. He has not contacted me and I have not contacted him. We have so much work to do at the moment with this pandemic that the drivers can wait until later in the year” – the Hass boss concluded.
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