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Steiner believes that Haas has already proven itself

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.

Ferrari engine on a par with Mercedes, or better - Steiner

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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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.