F1 News: Haas Chief Reveals Change To Car

In a recent revelation, Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner shed light on the team's intention to modify its car design and change the aerodynamic concept they're currently using. The change, as he indicated, arises from their continuous struggles during the 2023 Formula 1 season.

Key Takeaways:

The VF-23 car's excessive tyre degradation has caused the team's dip to the eighth position with just 11 points.
While Ferrari, Haas's technical ally since 2016, moved to a downwash solution inspired by Red Bull, Haas is the only team yet to replicate this configuration.
Steiner affirmed ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix that the team is in the process of introducing a downwash shape akin to what other teams have adopted.

Haas, once displaying an encouraging start as these new regulations begun, has found its momentum wane due to the VF-23's excessive tyre wear. As a consequence, they find themselves in a challenging position in the current standings.

Having shared a robust technical alliance with Ferrari since its entry into F1 in 2016 as a satellite team, Haas has often been on the same page regarding design. However, with Ferrari opting for Red Bull's successful downwash design, Haas stands as the lone team not yet embracing this sidepod concept.

But this is about to change, as Steiner confirmed:

“The concept of the car will change, going in that direction, you know you’re limited with the chassis and a few other things, but we’re trying to go to that common downwash shape like everybody else has got."

The Haas team has been contemplating a design philosophy shift "before the summer break". Steiner highlighted their predicament, saying:

“That was our biggest problem with the concept we have now: we couldn’t find any performance any more, we developed the whole year and there was nothing there anymore and at some stage you need to decide ‘we need to do something different here’, we cannot keep banging our head against the wall.

“You look at the other cars and they keep on finding… McLaren changed the system like this and they find something, at some stage you need to say, hey, we need to change concept, we need to face reality.”

Although the team had budgeted for updates based on the current concept, the lack of performance gains deterred such upgrades. Steiner's perspective was clear:

The plan was to have more upgrades with the concept we have now, but because we didn’t find performance, we didn’t introduce… or we did not introduce upgrades this year because we didn’t want to make them, there was no performance, there was no point making car parts if the car doesn’t go faster, so because we haven’t spent money we can now spend it on this big upgrade.”

Contrary to the whispers in the F1 corridors, Steiner firmly denies that Haas's struggles are due to its collaboration with Ferrari. In response to potential limitations from sharing Ferrari’s car architecture, Steiner elucidated:

“I don’t think it’s down to Ferrari… I wouldn’t blame Ferrari for that one.

“It’s like some of the stuff obviously we need to go close to them, we could have put it somewhere else if we wanted, but we put it very similar, that concept we are running now asked for the side impact structure to be where it is so that’s why it is where it is.”

Ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix, Steiner remains cautiously optimistic. With certain track changes, there's hope for Haas to break its non-scoring streak. Yet, Steiner candidly admits the tyre preservation issue is likely to persist with their current car configuration.

“I think it’s a 2-stop for everybody so that helps a little bit."

Concluding on a hopeful note, Steiner remarked: “Always we try the best we can do, you can never give up… you need to do the best out of the car you can and that’s what we’re doing.”

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