“We have issues with Ferrari employees coming to start up the engines”

A few days ago it was announced that Haas was on track with their new 2021 car, but there were rumours of a problem with the Ferrari engine. Now it’s official, Haas has a problem.

The engine is able to enter the country, but the Maranello engineers who have to install the engine are not. If they want to enter England, coming from Italy where the engine is manufactured, they will have to spend two weeks in quarantine.

This is causing problems for Haas, because the Ferrari engine can only be installed by Ferrari engineers. “We have issues with Ferrari employees coming to Banbury to start up the engines because they would need to quarantine,” team principal Guenther Steiner told F1. “We cannot afford that timewise, so we decided to do the fire up in Bahrain.”

Quarantine
The UK government currently mandates a 10-day self-quarantine for anyone entering the country, meaning Ferrari’s engineers would have to remain in quarantine, which is not feasible at this point in the year. As a result, the decision was made to start the engine in Bahrain this season. “It is late,” Steiner said, “But to our advantage, there is a lot of carryover so it’s not as dramatic as it would have been in any other year.”

Not fired up before Bahrain
It has become clear that Haas’ car will not be fired up before the team heads to Bahrain for winter testing. The teams will use the same chassis in 2021, but the engine ignition is always a milestone for any Formula One car. This traditional procedure is often performed in January or February, a few months before the car goes on track for testing. This will not be the case for Haas, as the engine can only be started during the winter tests in March.

Risk
Due to a unique set of circumstances Haas will not be able to assemble and start the car within the usual timeframe. The American team previously assembled the car at Dallara in Italy, but with so many parts carried over from 2020 to 2021, the team decided to build the car at its British base in Banbury this year.

“With the engine, there are a lot of the parts are carried over. The gearbox is carried over, too, and parts like the wiring harnesses. If this was not the case, it would be a very big risk to do it in Bahrain. But with this situation, the risk is manageable.”, the team boss says.