Haas to remain patient amid crisis, but not forever - Steiner

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says Gene Haas is willing to wait longer and see how F1's current crisis plays out, but the American team owner won't wait forever.

With the 2020 season at a standstill and with no clarity on when the racing will resume, teams have no other choice but to remain patient on the sidelines.

However, with resources running thin for the mid-field outfits and a projected collapse in revenue, patience can only be extended to a certain point.

"Like all of us, he [Gene Haas] doesn’t know what is coming in the near future, and whether or not we are having races [this year]," says Steiner, speaking to the official F1 website.

"He’s happy to wait longer, but like any businessman, you’re not happy to wait forever.

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"Let’s hope over the next few months, we get a better view of the near future, hopefully the situation doesn’t stay as fluid as it is now.

"There is no one to be blame, it’s just the circumstances. At the moment, he can stay calm but at some stage he needs to make a decision.

"But at the moment he wants to see it through. We have furloughed people, and we didn’t let them go.

"It’s one of those things, we just need to make sure we make the right decisions in the future, which keeps him interested into the sport."

Formula 1 has already announced cost saving measures for next season which include extending the use of this year's chassis designs into 2021.

But next year's scheduled budget cap and the level at which it will be set likely figures among the "right decisions" alluded to by Steiner.

Currently set at $150M, Haas is unsurprisingly among those lobbying for a more drastic reduction from the initial pre-crisis $175M level.

"It should come down," says Steiner. "I respect the big teams and their challenge to get down from a lot of people to a smaller amount.

"There’s a saying, 'It’s never nice to jump in a cold swimming pool, but at some stage you have to do it' - otherwise you’re not around anymore.

"It will be cold and it will be unpleasant but when you have done it, you’ve done it.

"This crisis gives us an opportunity. We need to make the sport survive. It is no good if the three rich teams are left.

"If McLaren and Renault want to come down, it means something. They are car manufacturers. They are big teams in my opinion. They realise where the world is going. Going on like this doesn’t make a lot of sense.

"I hope we will go back to not the one with the biggest wallet is the world champion, but the best team effort is world champion. I hope this crisis pushes us in that direction. But obviously I don’t know if it will happen."

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