Haas’ Guenther Steiner: “What I take to Imola is that the car is still performing”

Guenther Steiner says it is important for the Haas F1 Team to put their disappointing Australian Grand Prix weekend behind them and turn their focus onto returning to the top ten this weekend at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari.

Imola hosts the fourth round of the 2022 Formula 1 season, and after Kevin Magnussen scored points in both the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, neither the Dane nor team-mate Mick Schumacher were able to break into the top ten in Australia.

Despite missing out on points, Steiner believes the team were not far away from the top ten at Albert Park and had luck surrounding the timing of the safety car played more into their hands, they would have at least put themselves into contention.

“The whole weekend was very challenging, starting with little issues on Mick’s car and Kevin not being on top form because he didn’t feel well,” said Steiner.  “Nevertheless, with all these hinderances we still got close to points.

“In the race we didn’t get lucky with the safety cars which could’ve helped our strategy but we put Australia behind us. Not as a negative, but it’s a very competitive championship this year and you need to be perfect to get points.

“What I take to Imola is that the car is still performing, and we will perform as we go on. I hope we get to Imola having fewer unfortunate instances.” 

Steiner admits it will be more a challenging weekend at Imola with the sprint Qualifying format having its first outing of the season, particularly as there is only one hour of free practice time before they go Qualifying on Friday afternoon.

But despite this, he feels the team are up for the challenge, and he is hopeful of a points-filled weekend for the Haas team in Italy.

“For sure it will be challenging because we’ve only got one free practice session to find a good set-up,” he said.  “With the difficulties of these cars and the inexperience we have got with it, it won’t be easy but it’s the same for everybody and who is better prepared will have a better car so we will be trying our best like everybody else.

“I think it is a good thing for the championship to have these sprint races and I really look forward to it.”