Kevin Magnussen has described Haas as being in "survival mode" until the team introduces a major upgrade at next months United Stated Grand Prix in Austin.
This season, the second year of F1's ground-effects regulations, Haas' VF-23 has displayed on occasion a strong pace in qualifying.
However, it's been a very different story for the American outfit on Sundays, with tyre degradation issues systematically undermining both Magnussen and teammate Nico Hulkenberg's efforts.
The team has tried its best to mitigate its degradation troubles through tireless trial and error set-up work, but without making significant inroads into the problem.
Hulkenberg and Magnussen finished a lowly P14 and P15 in Japan last weekend, and the Dane is predicting more struggles in Qatar next week until it implements if change-of-concept package in Austin.
"It's survival mode until then," insisted Magnussen, quoted by Motorsport.com. "We got a point in Singapore with this car. So that track suited our car better.
"There's always reasons to try our best, and we will in Qatar as well. I've never been there, but it's a very fast track, in a way a little bit like this track, long, flowing fast corners. It's not really our track."
Despite the team's low-key weekend at Suzuka in terms of perfromance, Haas boss Guenther Steiner highlighted the outfit's strong execution.
"We know where we are, and I think we executed what we have got as well as you can," the Italian said.
"The pit stops were very good, the best ones this year, and we had five of them.
"Obviously we tried with Nico a three-stop, because he didn't have two sets of hard tyres, and he couldn't do it on a two-stop. We just did what we could with the car.
"And I think we got very close to the AlphaTauris in the end, and Kevin without having the spin inflicted by Perez, maybe he could have fought them.
"And hopefully the package works in Austin. And if it doesn't work, at least we learn something for next year."
©Haas
Haas will only have the five remaining races of 2023 to fully understand and optimize its package.
"Absolutely, and we had very little time to develop it," added Steiner. And when we decided we do it, we were wide open just to bring it to Austin to have as many races as possible.
"I'm not just trying to be careful. I'm just saying hopefully it works, and it gives us what we think it gives. And if it doesn't do that one it does the other thing, helping us for next year."
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
