Haas sticking to '23 development plan amid tyre issues

Haas remains committed to bringing updates to its 2023 car in a bid to solve the chronic tyre degradation issues that have impacted its VF-23 this season.

Haas' VF-23 has demonstrated impressive speed in qualifying trim, with Nico Hulkenberg qualifying among the top-ten in four of the last five races.

However, come race day, it's been a different story for the US outfit with degradation systematically undermining both Hulkenberg and teammate Kevin Magnussen's efforts.

"We had a good start to the season again, but we’ve fallen back a bit as we haven’t got as much out of our car compared to other teams," commented Haas team boss Guenther Steiner ahead of this weekend's round of racing at Spa-Francorchamps.

"The positives are that we now have Nico in the team, which has been a big help to get all the performance out and he’s working really hard to keep the team motivated and to push, he also fits in fantastically.

• Read also: Haas set to extend Hulkenberg contract for 2024

"There’s lots of other things that are positive, such as our pit stops. We’re pretty solid at the moment – fingers crossed it keeps on like this.

"But we can’t really show what we can do because, I wouldn’t say the lack of race pace, but with the degradation of the tyres in the race, the most important thing we don’t bring home is points."

Haas' engineers continue to be challenged by the VF-23's propensity to consume its tyres, but they are working hard to uncover the root cause of the chronic issue.

Therefore, updates will still find their way on to the US outfit's car, with any improvements transferred to next year's contender.

"In Hungary, the result looked worse than it was because we weren’t far from our competitors, but we were still behind," Steiner explained.

"It’s not fantastic but it’s the right direction. To say whether it was the updates that gave performance or whether it was track specific, it’s very difficult to judge because of how mixed up the teams are getting and how close it is, it’s hard to come to a definitive conclusion on whether an update works.

"Our upgrade was small as we all know but what it promised to do, it did, but it just wasn’t enough.

"Upgrades for this season will also be implemented on next year’s car and that’s why we’ve decided to continue with this year’s car development to really understand our problems and where we need to put effort into making the car better for next year.

"Right now, we’re developing both cars in parallel, and we don’t really know yet when we switch over only to 2024."

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