Haas were hamstrung by the recently-introduced sprint format, which has significantly changed the schedule for teams and drivers. Instead of running three practice sessions as they do on a normal race weekend, all 10 teams are given just one 60-minute session to test and tweak their setup before the sprint.
For that reason, Steiner has reason to be optimistic that their upgrades will eventually bring some improvements once they collect more data: “It feels like the first real running with the car, to be honest, because in practice there’s so many things going on,” the Italian added.
“Then, there were just two qualifying sessions which were also short, just two runs each time, or less. It’s good to get some proper mileage with it, some long-run data and some feel for it.
“Obviously, it doesn’t look too good right now, but there’s more for us to analyse and understand and more to discover with this package. At a sprint weekend, it’s difficult to explore that and unlock it.”
