Haas F1 Team ‘Owes Fans a Strong Result on Home Soil’

Formula 1’s lone US-registered team will have two opportunities to deliver on its home turf for its American fans during the 2022 season.

The US Grand Prix is ​​coming up in Austin, Texas in October, but first is this weekend’s inaugural Miami Grand Prix at the Miami International Autodrome.

Haas has not fared well on its home territory. Romain Grosjean’s solitary point at Austin in 2016 remains Haas’ only top-10 result in the United States. Kevin Magnussen was ninth in 2018 before being excluded for a fuel discrepancy.

There is a very realistic prospect that 2022 could deliver Haas its best home result. Magnussen has scored points in three of the four Grands Prix this year, while Mick Schumacher is knocking on the door of his maiden top 10.

“It would be great to have a good result here—it’s America, I don’t feel like we’ve had that great result in the US yet,” said Magnussen. “We owe (team owner) Gene (Haas) that, and we owe the US Haas fans a good result, so we’ll try and do that this weekend.”

Neither Haas driver has yet sampled the Miami circuit on a simulator, but Magnussen and Schumacher both carried out a track walk on Thursday and expect to be up to speed within a couple of laps on Friday.

“It’s awesome and makes you realize how big this sport has become, and that this set-up can be realized,” said Magnussen on the Hard Rock Stadium complex. “The track itself looks cool. I’d say it’s like a mini-Baku style circuit, with very long straights, a couple of low-speed corners, then a few high-speed ones. It’s certainly not going to be difficult to overtake if you have a pace advantage.”

Schumacher added, “It’s exciting, the track looks narrow at some point, there’s some super long straights, hopefully we have a lot of action and some good and nice fighting.”

This weekend’s Miami Grand Prix is ​​the first in a 10-year deal and there is enormous anticipation around the event already. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly quipped that “it feels like our Super Bowl in Formula 1.”

Formula 1’s reputation and status within the US is a world away from when Haas made its debut in F1 in 2016.

“It’s going through a very good phase, the best phase ever for F1, the growth and interest and commercial interest is good. Who would have seen this five years ago?” said Haas team principal Guenther Steiner. “I think here the whole city lifts it. In Austin, a lot of people come as well, but what I see, you never have to forget how big the United States are.

“I have lived here a long time, so I see the difference. Here it’s like having a Grand Prix in England or in Spain—you can have success in both places. It’s the same here.”

Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen, Guenther Steiner and Mick Schumacher are ready to put on a show for the US fans in Miami.

Dan Istitene – Formula 1Getty Images

That means Steiner does not see the race in Miami as a threat to the US’s existing event in Austin.

“We’re on the East Coast here, and they are in Texas,” Steiner said. “Texas itself is a huge state so I don’t think they are eating into each other because it’s such a big country which can actually have this amount of Grands Prix because the population is over 300 million. This is what we have to get used to as Europeans—if I talk as a European—that this is such a big country it can take this amount of races without a problem.”

Miami will be joined next year by Las Vegas, and Steiner suggested three events in the US is reasonable.

“I think if we do Vegas next year, three at the moment, as big a country as the US is, you have to solidify what we have got,” he said. “Not just try to do more, to do more. We need to get it better and better as well.”

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