Complexion among mid-field runners starting to emerge - Steiner

After enduring a double retirement in Australia, Haas F1 Team bounced back with a points-paying finish in China.

New recruit Kevin Magnussen led the way with a strong eighth-place result while Romain Grosjean finished just outside of the top ten after a spirited drive.

Bahrain resonates with good memories for Haas with the US squad and Grosjean finishing fifth in Sakhir last year in only its second F1 race.

"It was good to have this at the beginning of the year," remembers team boss Guenther Steiner.

" To get there, our people worked day and night, really hard. I don’t know how they did it looking back at it. It was a magnificent moment."

Bahrain's hot and dry - and sandy - environment  will provide a very different backdrop compared to Melbourne and Shanghai.

Slowly but surely, the relative level of performance among the incredibly tight mid-field runners will start to emerge, Steiner believes.

"The picture will get clearer by Barcelona, but what comes next are all the updates teams will bring in.

"How often updates come in and how effective they are will continue to mix things up. We will always chase the midfield this year – who is best and who is last.

"The updates this year should be significant. We have a very immature car because the development time was not long. We will get a clearer picture, but it won’t be definitive."

• Grosjean loves braking hard and late in Bahrain

In Bahrain, teams will use the same Pirelli compound mix - medium, soft and supersoft - as seen in Shanghai last weekend.

Asked whether racing back to back with the same tyres would be of any help, the Haas boss explained why the any advantage of prior knowledge would  be minimal.

"I wouldn’t say so because while we’ve got the same tires, the circumstances are different," Steiner insists.

"The temperature will be a lot different. China was much colder than Bahrain will be, where the temperature is meant to be near 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

"We will learn a lot about the tyres. It’s for sure useful, but I wouldn’t say what we learned in China, or what we learned in Melbourne, will specifically give us an advantage in Bahrain."

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