Steiner: Haas won’t set fast laps ‘just to feel great about it'

Guenther Steiner says the mechanical issues the Haas team suffered in week one of pre-season testing were ‘a bit frustrating’ but insists that his team will avoid the temptation to set headline lap times in week two ‘just to feel great about it’.

Despite setting some quick times during the opening week of pre-season testing, Haas ended it with a series of mechanical failures that limited the team’s running to just 384 laps - around 200 down on the leading teams.

Steiner though isn’t concerned by this and confirms that the team have identified the problem and maintains that they will make up for lost time in week two.

“It was a little bit frustrating because the same problem came up again. It was one control unit which just randomly did something that we couldn't identify but I think we have got it now. [This morning] it was good so I think we are over that one,” said Steiner.

“At least we had the problem in the [first week of testing] as we could fix it. If this happened on your last day of testing you're really struggling. So, we actually got lucky it happened at the beginning and we could get rid of it.

“It wasn't as bad, you know, as it looked. Now we just need to make up the time we lost and if we do something like we did today [123 laps at the time of writing] - we'll be pretty soon where we want to be.

Guenther putting in the media work Tuesday afternoon. #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/DbzSeB0qmT — Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) 26 February 2019

As the team prepares to defend their best ever constructors’ championship finish of fifth place this season, Steiner has dismissed talk of other team’s progress over the winter as ‘just speculation’ and says he’s ‘not interested’ in setting quick times this week if it means deviating from the team’s run programme.

“I hope we make some progress so we move a little bit up as well, not only the other ones. It's so easy to do a fast lap time if you want to, but I don't know what other people are doing. You know, it's all just speculation,” he continued.

“There's nothing to be won in testing, so we go through our programme - that's the plan. Whatever the other ones do, we don't really care about it. We just keep on doing [what we need to do] to understand the car, find the right setup, get data, and then we’ll see what we can do.

“The first qualifying is in Melbourne, so I'm not really interested here to show up on top of the timetable [just to] feel great about it.”

MORE: Hulkenberg ‘not concerned’ by improving midfield rivals
MORE: Red Bull prepared for strategic grid penalties

Follow @GPFansGlobal on Instagram for behind-the-scenes access from across the testing fortnight.