'Realistic' Haas expects to fight to exit Q1 at Monza
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says the US outfit heads to Monza with the target of exiting Q1, a feat achieved only three times this season by one of its cars.
In Spain and in Belgium, both Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean were eliminated in Q1, their pace weighed down by Haas’ uncompetitive Ferrari-powered VF-20.
Unfortunately, the results of the pair’s efforts on race day have been equally disappointing, with Magnussen securing in Hungary the team’s only top-ten finish so far in 2020.
“Realistically, we’ll be fighting to get out of Q1,” said Steiner. “That is the real expectation but that’s what we’ll be working towards – making it out of Q1.
“You need to have a target, but it needs to be realistic. There’s no point dreaming about getting into Q3. If we can get out of Q1, especially on high speed tracks like Spa and Monza, that’s good.
“We’ll fight hard but we know we’ve got one arm tied behind our back.”
- Haas open to full driver line-up change for 2021
Steiner will be attentive this week to Ferrari’s efforts to ensure its power unit demonstrates solid reliability this week following the issues encountered by Haas at Spa where the team was forced to write off its Friday after both its cars suffered an engine problem.
“I need to push our power unit supplier to give us solutions,” said Steiner. “Losing running time on a Friday, that doesn’t help anybody.”
Fortunately, Haas’ troops remain motivated despite the recent succession of setbacks.
“The first thing is to keep the team motivated – thank God they’re all still motivated to keep on going,” said the Italian. “I really admire that from the guys.”
Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
Comments
Recent Tips
