Guenther Steiner is confident that Haas F1 has already answered the critics who predicted that the team could flop in its sophomore season.
Neither Haas car made it full distance in Australia last week, but there was an impressive sixth place in qualifying for Romain Grosjean. As a result, the team principal felt confident that they were on the right track.
"There will always be doubters," he said this week.
"We’ll always be told that next year will be more difficult, and then we have to prove it again. You have to prove yourself every year in Formula 1.
"Qualifying sixth in the first race of 2017 quieted our critics a little bit. They will come back, but we proved we didn’t just get lucky last year."
Grosjean finished in the points last year in the team's Formula 1 début. This time a water leak sidelined him just 13 laps into the race in Melbourne. His team mate Kevin Magnussen also retired with a puncture and suspension issues.
In NASCAR, cars regularly go 'behind the wall' for repairs and return to the track later. Steiner said that this wasn't possible in Formula 1 because of the way the rules worked.
“If something breaks in a Formula 1 car, they are so highly sophisticated that it’s quite a process to determine all that’s wrong," he explained.
"Normally there’s not enough time to fix it. Plus, your mechanics are involved in all the pit stops. When something goes wrong, you can’t pull three or four guys to fix an issue
"By regulation, they’re needed for the pit stop with the other car that’s still running on the racetrack. To try to fix the car just to come in last, 20 laps down, doesn’t make any sense."
Now Steiner and his team will look forward to the next race in Shanghai.
"We are cautiously optimistic," he said of Haas' prospects in China. "We need to still prove that our performance wasn’t a one-off. It’s very tight in the midfield."
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