The long-term F1 vision causing Haas’s short-term pain

Zero points, last place 
in the constructors’ championship, only a couple of Q2 appearances all season. Those are numbers worthy of the infamous Marussia, Caterham and HRT trio. But Haas, though one of F1’s newer teams, had us accustomed to something else.

In the points in its first-ever race, eighth at the end of its first season, top five in the constructors’ standings in 2018. Team principal Guenther Steiner’s idea to buy whatever the regulations allowed Ferrari to sell, and outsource the creation of the car to Dallara, had been working.

But then it started to crumble. 
A problematic 2019 car led to a fall to ninth in the championship, against the backdrop of an acrimonious split with new title sponsor Rich Energy. The team accrued just three points in 2020, followed by the departure of
 drivers Romain Grosjean and
 Kevin Magnussen; and now Haas 
is fielding two rookies from Formula 2 in a car hurriedly altered to fit the regulation changes, and with no 
in-season development. It doesn’t take Steiner too long 
to explain what went wrong and when, as he sits down to talk to 
GP Racing.

“In 2019 our car… 
you know, sometimes the development of the car was not going the right direction,” he says. “We missed the boat there, when the rule change came with the big [front] wing. We went the wrong way, and when we discovered that, it was too late.

“So we were focusing on getting it fixed for 2020. And it was difficult, because all the other ones made headway. Then in 2020 you know what came, the pandemic. We didn’t know what was happening, and we stopped the development of the car. It sounds now too simple. 
But that’s what it was.”

Haas’s horrific 2021 is a direct legacy of the previous season. As it worked on fixing the aero missteps made on the 2019 car, Steiner’s team lost time. The ‘secret’ engine agreement between the FIA and Ferrari surely didn’t help either. And when the world went into quarantine in the spring of 2020, all Haas could do was pause its deal with Dallara. To spend money developing the car for 2021, given it was already one of the slowest on the grid, made no sense to Steiner.

Missteps made on front wing of 2019 Haas has had serious implications two years down the line

Photo by: Joe Portlock / Motorsport Images

Anyway, Steiner had other things to worry about in the first half of last year, as he admits his team came “pretty close” to ending its F1 journey altogether.

“When it was decided that we continue in F1, in August, or whenever we signed the commercial agreement, it was too late to make any progress for 2021,” says Steiner. “So we decided to take a step back to make two forward, and call this a transitional year, which we are going through now. We’re going through hell now for it.”

So, in a sense, the team’s current travails are an inescapable element of the long-term vision.

“I was not focused on the short term anymore,” explains Steiner. “Sometimes in business you have to make these decisions. You’re having one or two bad years to have a long [term] future. And that was where I was focusing my efforts, to make sure the team is still there in 2022.”

Steiner no longer needed the experience of Grosjean and Magnussen to drive what would be F1’s slowest car in 2021. What he did need was a decent budget to
get ready for 2022

Steiner’s to-do list for the second part of 2020 included rebuilding the technical team, along with finding new sponsors, or drivers with backing. Most importantly, he had to convince Gene Haas to keep investing into the team – something Steiner admits wouldn’t have been possible without the budget cap.

“For us, for sure it was one of the deciding factors,” says Steiner. “That and the new distribution of the funds from FOM. To create something sustainable you need to have profits. With the model they’ve put in place now, if you do a good job, you can make it [profitable]. Obviously you have to make a good job, but it is possible. And that should be the aim.

“I think I had a clearer picture 
[of a new long-term plan] in July, and then I just needed to speak 
with Mr Haas, if he accepts that picture. Because in the end the team is his. The clear go-ahead I got in August, when Mr Haas signed the Concorde Agreement.”

Steiner and Haas elected to sacrifice 2021 for a shot at moving up the order when new regulations come in next year

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

From then on it was all about the long term. Steiner no longer needed the experience of Grosjean and Magnussen to drive what would be F1’s slowest car in 2021. What he did need was a decent budget to 
get ready for 2022.

Nikita Mazepin is an F2 race winner, but the cynic’s argument that it was his father’s millions which convinced Haas is boosted by the fact the 2021 car of F1’s only American team looks like a four-wheeled Russian flag. Mick Schumacher’s F2 title likewise probably wasn’t the only draw for Steiner. Schumacher is the complete package – his lineage makes him a draw for new sponsors, and he’s a Ferrari protege, which was also handy given Steiner’s new plan called for even closer cooperation with the Scuderia.

PLUS: How Mick Schumacher is making his own F1 name 

The budget cap helped here as well. Since Ferrari had to reduce its headcount to fit the new financial regulations and Haas needed to rebuild its technical department, the opportunity presented itself. Now, not only are dozens of former Ferrari staff employed by Haas, they work at the new team’s Maranello office, run by its new technical director Simone Resta, who joined Haas in December 2020 – from Ferrari, naturally. Haas still works with Dallara, too.

“There is about 30 full-time people there [Dallara],” says Steiner. “It goes up and down with what we need – like in every race team. November, December, January we need more people, because there you push really hard.

“Simone is managing them as well. We have got a project manager, which is the same guy at Dallara, Walter Biasatti. He was there from the beginning. But now he liaises with Simone.”

With about 70 people working at Maranello and around the same number at Banbury, where the race team is based, Haas is back to about 200 staff – the same as it was in its best F1 years so far.

It doesn’t necessarily follow that the influx of staff will lift the team to its previous heights. After all, when you hire 70 people almost at once, there is no guarantee of them working seamlessly from the outset – especially with the challenge of all-new technical regs next season.

Haas team has undergone much change, but Steiner is optimistic the fruits should be felt soon

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“I would say most of the people were there in January, which doesn’t mean they were fully efficient in January,” says Steiner. “We needed to renegotiate with Dallara – what we are going to do with them, what kind of things we need from them. So there was a lot of things to be sorted out. When we got to a good efficiency rate I would say it was April, May.”

Having elected to continue the F1 project, Gene Haas visited the new Maranello base in September.

“As I say, if Gene says nothing, normally I’m pretty happy,” laughs Steiner. “I think he’s pretty happy [with] what he saw. The guys did a presentation to him – what they are working on for next year, where we are at for next year. He saw that we are on it again. Obviously the result of ‘being on it’ we will find out only next year, but he sees that there is 
a lot of effort going in.”

"I don’t see why it shouldn’t work. I see what they’re doing, the progress they’re making. I can believe it will work again" Guenther Steiner

Since F1 is, in effect, hitting the reset button in 2022, the good news is that Steiner’s team no longer needs to be catching up – with the caveat that Haas’s rivals are all working from a similarly blank page. Obviously some teams are better resourced than others, but the Haas structure has worked in the past, and now it is theoretically benefitting from an upgrade in the form of more ex-Ferrari staffers getting involved in the place of their counterparts from Dallara.

“The set up hasn’t changed,” says Steiner. “The only change on the physical side is that before we had a big office in Dallara, and that office is now smaller, but we have a bigger office in Ferrari.

“I think we’re still getting through ramp-up again, but we’re almost there, working at the same level as 2016, 2017 and 2018 on the technical side. On the race team, not a lot has changed. The senior people are still the same, so the race team was never weakened last year.

“Therefore I don’t see why it shouldn’t work. I see what they’re doing, the progress they’re making. I can believe it will work again.”

After a period of turmoil, can Haas move up the grid in 2022?

Photo by: Erik Junius

A touch of frost

One of the key questions this season was how effectively Haas’s two rookie drivers could adapt to F1, given the limitations of the car. And as the season developed, further questions emerged over how effectively Schumacher and Mazepin could work together – because it seemed that, rather like the cast of the Carry On films, they hated each other.

“For sure they will not admit that when they came into it they were a little bit blue-eyed, thinking, ‘Oh, I can do this pretty easy,’” says Steiner. “It isn’t easy coming into F1. Even I was surprised how difficult it is.

“But I think they learned a lot, and know now what is important and what is not important. The only thing [which is] important is to go fast, focus on what you’re doing, and nothing else. The relationship between them wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t really bad. It got a little bit better lately, but I don’t know if they will ever be best friends. And I don’t need that.

“As long as there is respect there for themselves and for the team. If you come from F2 your team-mate [there] is just another rival, you don’t care who he drives for. But in F1 it counts who you’re fighting with, so I think they get an understanding of that one, hopefully, to be ready next year, so when we get points we can get the maximum out of it for the team.”

Schumacher and Mazepin haven't had the best of relationships in 2021

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images