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The first and only Haas upgrade will make an appearance at the 2022 F1 Hungarian GP. According to German publication Auto Motor und Sport, the upgrade is going to be sizeable and if rumors are believed to be true, it's going to look very similar to Ferrari. In a recent report shared by the website, it stated:
“Haas will add a major upgrade to the next race in Budapest, in which the biggest changes relate to the sidepods and the underbody. According to rumors, the shape is strongly reminiscent of the Ferrari – only in white instead of red.”
Meanwhile, Haas team principal Guenther Steiner clarified that the team was only bringing one upgrade to the race this weekend and it would go to Kevin Magnussen. Speaking about the upgrades, Steiner said:
“There is only one car having the upgrade. And then the spares will be very lean even for that car. You know, everything came late, we had a lot of accidents this year. So, all the materials were used up a lot to do that one, and then we started late also. We postponed it from France to [Hungary].”
“In the beginning, they said we cannot do it anymore until Spa, and everybody really pushed to have at least one set for Budapest so we get some data and can analyse it then for when we get going again after the break. And then if it doesn’t work, we always can go back to what we had before, we have got a good plan in place, well organised. The only thing is we are pretty lean on spares even for one car.”
Haas not targetting any specific numbers of downforce with the upgrade
Guenther Steiner was quite pragmatic in Haas' approach to the upgrade as he admitted they did not have any pre-set targets in terms of downforce numbers from the upgrades. Claiming that his team will evaluate what the upgrades bring to the car and then take it from there, the 57-year-old said:
“Talking numbers, I don’t want to get the number, because then you get disappointed, and what you compare it with. Because you haven’t got the same car doing a back-to-back. So we know how much more downforce it gives, there’s a calculation how much it should do, and then we see how much it does do.”
“But I’m not going out there saying now this is what it should be doing. We will find out and then we will see if it works, but we will not have a back-to-back from the same car.”
Steiner also revealed that Mick Schumacher was due for an engine change as well, which could happen at Spa. He said:
“He’s due to an engine change as well. And I don’t know exactly when we’re going to do that. We need to check a few things, but hopefully, we can avoid to do it in Budapest. If we’re not forced to do it, we’re not going to do it in Budapest. That I cannot say 100%, because they need to look to this engine, how it looks. But once we know that one, but the plan in the moment is to do it in Spa.”
Going into the Hungaroring, the American outfit's hopes will be pinned on this upgrade as this will be the team's first and only upgrade package this season.
