Nico Hulkenberg clocked in an impressive ninth at the end of Friday's second practice in Jeddah, but the German admits that Haas remains challenged on long runs.
Hulkenberg secured the final spot among the top ten in qualifying in Bahrain, but on Sunday neither himself nor team mate Kevin Magnussen were ever in contention for points with the pair finishing respectively P15 and P13.
In Friday's FP2, the Hulk demonstrated once again the strong top-ten, single-lap pace of Haas' VF-23 during a qualifying sim.
But long runs on high fuel at the end of the session proved clearly that more work is required to improve Haas' pace in race trim without worsening tyre degradation.
©Haas
"We had a smooth Friday – no major incidents, situations, or problems," commented the Hulk. "Like always, you learn about the car, the tires and where the balance is.
"Certainly, again over one lap I think we seem to be competitive and long runs could be a bit more challenging for us, so that’s where our focus is now.
"It’s all about pace, tyre degradation and being quick in the right places – we need to analyze and consider it all to come up with the best strategy."
Magnussen concluded FP2 down in 15th position, but the Dane was satisfied overall with his day of work but noted the competitive level of the field, with the first eleven drivers in FP2 all withing the same second.
"It was good, we got through FP1 and FP2 fine but there’s lot of work to do on Friday night as always," he said.
"The field is tight again just like in Bahrain and there’s a lot to fight for tomorrow. It’s a very different track, different speeds, and it’s hard to compare but there’s new challenges.
"We’ll aim to do as good as we can of course and get into Q3, but the main focus is on Sunday."
©Haas
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner was happy with his outfit's incident-free first day in Jeddah, but the Italian acknowledged that his team needed to find more performance.
"There were no issues at all, we went through the whole program, and completed 95 laps," Steiner said.
"We need to find a bit more performance but all in all everyone is quite happy.
"We need to find a little bit on Kevin’s car because he’s a little bit not so happy with his car, but I think we know what we have to look for."
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