"There is still more in the car" - Haas F1 'pretty confident' of improved results despite limited test running

Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner believes the VF22 is yet to unleash its fullest potential. According to the Italian team principal, there will be more performances to follow in the next few races from their car.

Speaking to GPFans about their car, Steiner said:

“The biggest improvement will be the set-up because we haven’t done enough testing. There are still things to come. It’s not that we have a bad set-up but I think there is still more in the car.”

Despite being hampered by limited testing in pre-season tests, Steiner believes there is more to understand and extract out of their current package. The 56-year-old revealed that improving the set-up of their car will further improve their performances in the upcoming races.

Summarizing their experience with the car so far, Steiner said:

“If we had more time to work, it’s not that the guys don’t understand, it’s just that we need to learn about it because in testing we did about half the mileage of the big teams, and in Saudi Arabia, with Kevin, we did three timed laps.”

The American-owned team was unable to rack up enough mileage in the first pre-season test in Barcelona, while the second test in Bahrain was hampered by freight delays. A large part of the team’s time in Bahrain was also clouded by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its effect on their Russian sponsors Uralkali and Nikita Mazepin.

Although former Haas driver Kevin Magnussen replaced the Russian driver, the team had two days of testing with a limited amount of extra time allotted due to freight delays. As such, they are yet to understand their car and get their package to work according to expectations.

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Haas team boss confident about better results in upcoming races

As the Haas team understands their car in the opening races of the season, team principal Guenther Steiner is positive that they will be performing better than their current form. The Italian revealed that their car development is on track and it will be a matter of time before they can be more competitive.

Looking forward to the races ahead, Steiner said:

“It’s still in there to be better it’s just finding out where we need to be but the rest of the car seems to be well under control. We’re pretty confident we’ll have good results coming as well.”

The Banbury-based team is currently fifth in the constructors’ standings after two races but is expected to perform better upon further developing its car. With the Ferrari engine powering their success so far, the chassis development will add more pace to their existing package.