The Austrian Grand Prix will take place on 2 July and of course the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team will be present.
After the Canadian Grand Prix, the American-owned team has had the opportunity to analyse the ups and downs after having a very successful qualifying with German driver Nico Hulkenberg in Canada, only to find themselves struggling in the race to get the tyres right.
High levels of tyre degradation has been a consistent theme for Haas throughout the season on Sundays. Strong qualifying sessions ultimately lead to nothing as they descend through the pack during the Grand Prix itself. The previous race in Spain was another harsh reality of that.
Guenther Steiner says the team is trying to work on the situation as they find themselves in a big fight with Alfa Romeo and Williams for P7 in the Constructors’ Championship.
“We’re investigating the very good performance we have in qualifying and not-so-good performance during. the race at the moment. We’re trying to pinpoint it but for the next races we’re maybe going to try and find a sweeter spot between the two sessions, qualifying and the race, something in the middle. We’re working hard on it and trying to find out what we can do over the next races to make it better.”
Having said that, the Italian added that they will be treating the two races this weekend as somewhat of a test session to try and understand their issues, with an eye to next year’s design as well.
“We’re going into this race partly a little bit like a test session as well. We have a lot of things to try and cure our problems with the race pace, so we have a few ideas. As we have two races now this weekend, we’ve got double the amount of time to try to do different things. Obviously, we always try to get the best result possible but also maybe we compromise the best result possible for really understanding what is happening with our car on race day.
“We’re working very hard to try and find out why the discrepancy of being very fast and not so good in the race is happening. We’ve got a few leads and for sure it will impact the VF-24 design. We obviously have to take that feature out of the car next year.”
Steiner also commented that both Hulkenberg and Magnussen have played an integral part in the feedback to find the problem on the car in the short and long term:
“I must admit, I’m actually very happy with both Kevin and Nico about how they’re an integral part in trying to sort the problem and find the solution, how we tackle the short and long-term fix for this, and they’re both very positive. Not about the performance in the race right now but positive that we can get out of the problem we have now.”
Photo credit: MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
