Haas decided not to develop his car at all for the 2021 season, resulting in his worst season since joining the sport as it didn’t score a single point.
With the introduction of the cost cap and the new regulations that are likely to be closed, Haas expects to return to midfield.
Despite the budget constraints, Haas is still the smallest team in the field, according to Steiner.
“I think we’re still going to be the underdog trying to assert ourselves because our structure is about the same as 18 and 19,” he said.
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“The number of people, we changed the people a bit, instead of using Dallara people we now have our own people and some of the people from Ferrari who moved from there because of the budget cap.
“But we’re still the smallest team in terms of people. In terms of production, we are of course by far the smallest. I think we’re still the team we were 16, 17 and 18 and we want to go back to where we were 18 and 19. We still want to be known for it.”
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Haas did not benefit from Ferrari’s mid-season powerplant upgrade, believing it would not give them enough advantage to offset the cost of a new engine.
However, Steiner is encouraged by the Italian manufacturer’s improvement and hopes Haas will benefit from it in 2022.
“Very encouraging. I think Ferrari is making good progress on the combustion engine as well, not just on the hybrid system for next year,” he added.
“But it’s like with the car – we don’t know what the others are doing. I know they said we’re going to make a nice step this year so I hope that works and I hope the others didn’t do a mega job.
“But it’s very encouraging to see that they’ve made a development and it’s working. The results also improved significantly towards the end of the season.”
