Toro Rosso driver Carlos Sainz has expressed his view that Haas should be doing much better in Formula 1 than it currently is.
Haas took its best result of the year last weekend, when Romain Grosjean clinched sixth place in the Austrian Grand Prix. The race before that, Kevin Magnussen was seventh in Baku.
Haas is now in seventh place in the constructors championship ahead of Renault, Sauber and McLaren. Toro Rosso itself is only four points ahead of Haas in the standings after Austria.
However, Sainz said he had been expecting even better from Haas given its de facto position as a junior Ferrari squad. Haas gets its engines and 'non-listed' parts from Maranello, and its chassis from Dallara.
"Haas in the end is a Ferrari B. It is a bit of a surprise that they haven't performed better up until now," the Spaniard is quoted as saying by Autosport magazine.
"If you look at the car and the engine itself, it's more a Ferrari than anything else."
The Haas team's Achilles heel up to now has been the VF-17's brakes. Issues with them have been a major headache for Grosjean in particular.
"On tracks where they don't struggle with brakes, with bumps or with kerbs, they put the downforce they have and the engine that they have and you look here and they have a very competitive car," agreed Sainz.
"They performed really well in Australia, they performed massively in Austria," he added.
Haas is still only in its second full season in Formula 1, having made its debut only 16 months ago in Australia. Sainz conceded that this was why they were yet to find consistency.
"It is still a young team but they have a really competitive package."
Force India's chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer suggested that having the right technical package was only part of the problem. He believed that a lack of experienced personnel might be holding Haas back.
"Perhaps Carlos is right and they are a Ferrari B team," he said. "They have some Ferrari technology in their car which makes it a good one.
"However it's not Ferrari personnel extracting that performance," he pointed out. "You've still got to do a lot of things right trackside in order to extract the performance."
"As the time goes on, if the car is fundamentally good they'll learn how to extract that performance," he predicted.
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