Haas team principal Guenther Steiner believes the new US Formula 1 team is not being presumptuous by targeting points in its maiden Grand Prix season.
As the Haas F1 Team enters the last stretch before unveiling its 2016 contender at Barcelona in a few weeks, it has generated much interest and expectations given its technical partnership with Ferrari and its self-proclaimed ambitions.
While many have labeled Haas' targeting of points as overly ambitious, Guenther Steiner refutes the claim, believing the team's solid foundation and potential entitle it to such an objective.
"We don't want to sound arrogant that we are going for points," Steiner told Motorsport.
" No. We are aiming for points. But the main thing that we want to do, is that we want to show that even for a new team coming in, it is still possible to do F1 starting from nothing.
"We took our time, we invested our time in getting as prepared as we could. F1 is such a difficult business to get ready from nothing. It is not easy – even the two years we have had, it is a long time.
"But we worked hard in these two years. We were not sitting around for 18 months and then started to think about what to do six months ago."
While the team's learning curve remains obviously steep, Steiner explained that Haas' diligent and hard-working approach insures that it has done its very best to prepare for the big time.
"Our biggest thing is: we want to go out there and be respected by doing a good job. If that good job is finishing races, fine, but if we can pull it off and get in to the points then fantastic. I think we don't expect to be on the podium! We have clear expectations.
"To make the team work as a team will be one of the our biggest, if not the biggest, task now. The car is one thing, but a car – we did a lot of work on it, but to work in the real racing environment, the team is going to do that for the first time in Australia."
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