Guenther Steiner says he doubts Haas will be able to address the VF-19’s tyre problems this year, believing its problem ‘sounds almost too simple’ not to have found a solution.
Haas, which battled Renault for fourth in last year’s Constructors’ Championship, has slumped to ninth in this season’s standings, ahead only of the beleaguered Williams outfit.
Haas’ VF-19 has regularly been strong in qualifying, with both Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen having made Q3 eight times, but in race trim it has regressed.
Haas has scored just once – courtesy of Magnussen’s ninth in Russia – since it picked up a double-points finish at the rain-hit German Grand Prix back in July.
“It’s just more of the same,” rued Steiner about Haas’ performance in Japan.
“We now know that these things happen, they are never nice but they actually happen.
“You go into the race always knowing that at some stage we will have an issue with the tyre because we cannot generate the heat we need to make the tyre work, so as blue flags come in you slow down, the tyre gets cold, we cannot get the heat back in and you fall back.
“It sounds almost too simple not to have a solution for it but that is what is happening.
“So even if we can qualify on one lap normally decently – going into Q3 is still an achievement in my opinion – but we cannot hold on in the race for this reason. We just cannot keep the heat in the tyres.”
Formula 1 has only four events remaining this year – in Mexico, the United States, Brazil and Abu Dhabi – and Steiner expressed doubt that its predicament will improve between now and December.
“We know where we are and why we are where we are, but to fix it is a different issue and I don’t know if we can get on top of it this year consistently,” he said.
“There’s only four races left anyway but maybe we’ve got one or the other good day in general.
“It’s not like I can tell you that in the next two races we will bring an upgrade that will sort the problem, we just need to make sure that this doesn’t happen next year because it’s quite consuming.”
