As Haas team boss, Mick Schumacher is facing a tough debut season in Formula 1, Günther Steiner admits that the entire development of the American team this year will focus on the 2022 car.
The news will be a blow to the German youngster and his Russian teammate Nikita Mazepin, who struggled with predecessors Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen with an uncompetitive car last season.
Apart from an underpowered Ferrari engine, the car was inconspicuous from the start and, to be honest, it was just a combination of strategic gambling, luck and the perseverance of its drivers that brought the American team to the finish ahead of Williams in the overall standings.
As Gene Haas quickly became disillusioned with the sport, money is a problem and as a result the car was little or no development over the course of the season, instead the team was already focusing on 2022 and the new regulations.
Although this year’s cars were essentially carried over from last season, there is a token system in place to allow for some development, but Günther Steiner warns that they will be used.
“We could have built a new nose, but we were too late,” he tells the German Auto Motor und Sport. “The wind tunnel program was shut down too long for us to have the nose ready before the end of September deadline.”
However, should pre-season testing reveal serious problems, he admits the situation could change.
“It can happen that we have to work on the 2021 car again if we discover during the test drives that we have made a mistake,” he admits. “That would be plan B. Actually, we don’t want to use wind tunnel time for the 2021 car anymore.”
It was announced yesterday that due to the current travel restrictions due to the pandemic, Ferrari cannot send technicians to Banbury to install and start the new unit.
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