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Haas can progress without upgrades - Steiner

Guenther Steiner says Haas can make progress up the pecking order this season without upgrades as it turns its attentions to 2017.

Haas scored heavily in its opening two races, with Romain Grosjean finishing sixth in Australia and following that up with a fifth place in Bahrain. However, the team has picked up just four points in total in the following four rounds but Steiner feels it can get back to fighting for more points even though there is little development planned for the 2016 car.

"I’ve always said the updates doesn’t help us," Steiner said. "There is more in the car to come. The others brought updates but we kept up with them, we didn’t lose, we’re actually gaining at the moment.

"We’ve brought our fair share of updates – small ones – and we will bring a few more, but not a lot. I think all the other midfield teams have stopped now bringing updates.

"The next platform of car is there for the next five years, and this car is here for another 15 races, so where do you put your focus? Obviously on the next five years. So therefore we’ve decided to shift quite heavily into ’17 development."

And Steiner says the main final upgrades Haas will deliver are currently scheduled to appear before the summer break.

"Austria or Silverstone we’ll bring something more. We’ve a low downforce wing for Monza, but we’re not doing a lot more, the only one that will be a little bigger is Austria or Silverstone."

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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.