Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says the chronic tyre degradation issues impacting its 2023 car have led to "rollercoaster" race weekends that are "difficult to digest" for the US outfit.
This season, the second year of F1's ground-effects regulation, Haas' VF-23 has demonstrated impressive speed on Saturdays, with Nico Hulkenberg qualifying among the top-ten in four of the last six races.
However, it's been a different story for the American outfit on Sundays, with tyre degradation systematically undermining both Hulkenberg and teammate Kevin Magnussen's efforts.
Haas' engineers have been on their car's case for months, but elaborating a solution has turned into a long-haul process. In the interim, Steiner admits that race weekends are a frustrating succession of highs and lows.
"Obviously, we started off pretty good but then didn't get a hold of our problems right away, which is the tyre overheating," Steiner explained, quoted by Motorsport.com.
"And now we're a little bit on the back foot. We can do very good qualifyings and very bad races, we can do both of them. For the whole team it's a rollercoaster to have these highs on a Saturday and these lows on a Sunday. It's difficult to digest.
"We're working very hard on it and hopefully we've got something after the break. But it's not easy and until you try it on the car, you don't know.
"You can do a lot of simulations, calculations, whatever. But you need to put the stuff on the car, because it's still a very weird problem we have got compared to everybody else. But you cannot give up."
Further complicating matters for Haas is the conundrum surrounding the design of next year's car. Steiner says it would be wrong for the team to switch the bulk of its resources towards its 2024 contender without first getting to the bottom of its tyre degradation issues.
"I think we need to fix this one before," he said. "We can go parallel to 2024 but we cannot ignore this one now and just go for '24.
"If you don't understand it then it could be in the '24 car again, that would be pretty stupid. We are working now on the '23 car flat out to make it better."
It has been suggested that Haas' troubles may be rooted in a problem embedded in the drive train and rear suspension package of its Ferrari-sourced components, elements also used by the Scuderia which also suffers from excessive tyre degradation on its SF-23 car.
"It's very weird. With them you can see it a lot less because they run higher, but if they hadn't had it, would they win races maybe? But that's not for me to talk about, that's for Fred to talk about," Steiner commented.
"If you see the Ferrari, it's not the same problem. And the point is that doesn't make our problem better. Somebody else having a bad day and me having a bad day doesn't make my day better. I'm still having a bad day, you know?
"But obviously, it needs to be looked at as well and we do. It's not like we're sitting here and doing nothing, but there could be an issue in the specifics there."
Steiner reckons that Haas could currently be sitting higher in F1's Constructors' standings had it solved it tyre troubles at the outset.
"Absolutely, if we would have sorted our stuff out [we could have been way higher up]," said the Italian.
"But the only thing you can do with things like these is to keep your head down and keep working.
"[McLaren] made good steps forward, fair play to them, they did a good job. But the good thing on that one is that it is possible. Just knowing that it is possible is a motivation."
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