Steiner: Haas wants to target points at every race

Following Haas’ strong F1 debut, Guenther Steiner says the US outfit wants to target points at every race, though the team principal warns against becoming “a little bit greedy”.

While Romain Grosjean’s sixth place in Australia had been aided by the race being red-flagged, the Frenchman did not need any outside help to storm to fifth at last Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

• GALLERY: Bahrain Grand Prix 

With the Sakhir event taking place in dry representative conditions and on a more traditional racetrack, Steiner believes that Haas is now ready to raise its initial ambitions.

“Fifth is a little too much to ask for but I think we want to try now to get points at every race, that’s the objective,” the 50-year-old said. “Whether we reach it or not, I don’t know. But for sure, we know the car well enough what it can do given the pace over two races.

“I think it is possible to make points. We’ve only had one car finishing the race so far, so if you have two the chances are doubled. We want to try to get points every time. But always targeting fifth would be getting a little bit greedy and we don’t want to be that.”

Haas’ prospects of remaining a top 10 contender will hinge on the American rookies’ ability to match F1’s relentless development pace. If team owner Gene Haas hinted in Melbourne that the VF-16 would receive little evolutions throughout the year, Steiner insists Haas will not remain idle on that front.

“We will have developments coming. I don’t know exactly yet how we commit to them because our strategists first need to find out what we can get out of this car. We still don’t know this car really. I think there is more potential in the car, which we have not discovered yet.

“Will we have developments at every race? No, obviously not. But we will not stand still and do nothing because then you automatically fall back. We won’t be developing as much as the big teams but we will be in the same ballpark as the other teams in the midfield.

“When we find something, we’ll evaluate and see whether this is worthwhile or not. We’re not saying we’ll do it just to do it. No, we evaluate every gain we make in the wind tunnel in our development and then we see if we put them on full scale and go in production with it.”

RACE REPORT: Rosberg beats Raikkonen to win in Bahrain

AS IT HAPPENED: Bahrain Grand Prix

GALLERY: Sakhir podium

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