Guenther Steiner insists that Haas F1's position in the constructors championship don't paint an accurate picture of the success of the team's sophomore season.
The team principal says that the team has made huge strides forward in 2017, even if this is not always reflected by the points they have scored.
Last year, Haas amassed 29 points over the course of a 21-race season. This year they've already picked up 47 points in 19 events, with one race remaining. The team is currently in eighth place, which is where they finished 12 months ago.
“I think points tell something, but not everything," he said this week. "I wouldn’t have said we’ve gotten better if we had less points. But looking in from the outside, I think we’ve made progress at all levels.
"We wanted to better our position, but at this moment in time we are equal, so sure we will try to get better in Abu Dhabi. I was hoping to better our end-of-season position by one spot."
Steiner went on to compare the challenges of the first and second seasons in Formula 1.
“It was very similar," he said. "The first year we had to build a new car completely, and the team, but we had a little bit more time.
"This year, again, we had to do a completely new car – we already had the team built up – but we still had to optimise it.
"The intensity was almost the same, but when I think about our 2018 car, the intensity is the same again.
“We’ve been working together now for over a year, over two years with some people," he pointed out.
"It’s just like we know each other better and we know what to expect. We know each other’s limits. That helps a lot when you do things.
"We’re well covered personnel-wise. We have enough people who are part of the team that we can lean on."
Looking forward, Steiner said that he expected the team to build year-on-year as it gained more experience.
"I don’t think there’s a lot of change in whatever you’re doing in Formula 1," he suggested. "Everything is always on the edge. Everything goes to the last minute, And it’s all at the highest level.
“You need to better yourself in every little detail," he added. "There is not one big thing that I would say we would do completely different. But there are a lot of things you optimize with hindsight.
"“The challenge is just to optimize everything and find the weak spots where we can gain performance with the least amount of changes.”
Most of all, Steiner believed that the past two years had proved that Haas' new way of tackling the challenge of Formula 1 was working.
“It shows this is a model that is, at least, not wrong," he said. "If there is a better model out there – for sure, there is always something better – but our model works.
"What we set out to do, we’re doing.”
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