Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says the US outfit owes its points shortfall since last summer principally to its midfield rivals' strong reliability that his limited its access to the top-ten on race day.
Haas enjoyed a productive start to its 2022 campaign with its new-generation car, with Kevin Magnussen scoring points in three of the first four races.
But a performance lull followed thereafter until Silverstone and Spielberg where Magnussen and teammate Mick Schumacher delivered double top-ten finishes to the team.
However, the team has put zero points on the board since then. But Steiner points to the solid reliability of Haas' rivals and to close competition rather than to a performance deficit as the reason for his outfit's disappointing run in the back-half of the season.
"When you have a few results that are not very good, everybody takes negatives away and goes it all went wrong," he said. "For me, it’s a tough crowd here.
"We have got 10 very good teams, and you need to fight everybody. Some you cannot fight, and some are there to take your points.
"At Monza, Williams was very good, Nyck [de Vries] did a fantastic job. It’s tough. If you don’t perform at 100% of what you’ve got, you will not score points anymore."
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Steiner says his second "take-away" from this season - the first of Formula 1's new technical regulations - is how good the sport's cost-cap has worked in terms of tightening the field, at least as far as the second half of the grid is concerned.
"I just think the strong teams, they are reliable now," he added.
"The top four teams, they’re executing very good, and then it’s the other six teams which fight about ninth and 10th to be honest, that’s what it looks like at the moment.
"So what do I put that one down to? I don’t know, it’s just competition. They did a better job. There is nothing hidden in there.
"What you can take away, I think the budget cap works, because the teams are as close together as they ever were.
"The six teams behind the four teams, they are very close. Anybody could score at any moment, the two and the one point.
"Obviously if anyone drops out, then you move up a little bit more, but it shows that everything works. I think in a few years, it will close up even more, and then everyone will be mixing up more."
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