Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsHaas F1 Team

Steiner wary of Haas' expectancy level

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner is wary of heightened expectations following a dream first race in Australia.

Romain Grosjean delivered a remarkable sixth place in the first ever race for Haas, with a one-stop strategy helping the Frenchman climb from 19th on the grid. While Steiner was understandably delighted with how Haas delivered on the opening weekend, he warns it would be unrealistic to expect the result to be repeated frequently.

“I think our plan is working, but we won’t finish sixth every weekend, so we need to be careful with our expectations," Steiner said. "I think we showed that you can start a new team and end up in the midfield. We were not last in Australia, which was one of our goals, and I don’t think we will be last this year. How far we’ve come is a sign that our plan is working.”

However, Steiner says the expectations within the team will remain realistic as it works to replicate its debut result.

“We are not being arrogant about our early success and we will have our races where we will underperform. Our sixth-place finish in Australia keeps the team going, working very hard and trying to do the best possible job we can. If we continue to do what we did in Melbourne, good results will come.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.