Racing through Covid helped F1 teams survive - Steiner

F1’s ability to deliver a 17-race show this season and to announce a provisional 23-race schedule for 2021 has been crucial in helping teams get through the Covid crisis, according to Haas boss Guenther Steiner.

The globetrotting sport could have been one of the worst hit when the world locked down earlier this year, but instead the organisers created a new calendar based in Europe and the Middle East and resumed racing within four months.

Steiner admitted in October that the US-based Haas team was hit hard financially by the crisis, but said the rapidly revised plans and now the announcement of the calendar has helped give a level of certainty for next year.

“As always with these things, they’re much more difficult when there are unknowns,” he said. “I think the good thing is we have proven, even in a very difficult year like this one, that we were able to get a calendar together.

“Yes, it wasn’t more than 20 races, but it’s 17 and it’s been a good season. [As a result] it’s not as bad as it looks like to speak with partners and suppliers.

“There’s always a little bit of guesswork in it, and who guesses better has got the advantage. Experience helps a lot here, but I would say, due to a very successful 2020, it’s not been made so difficult to plan and speak with people for 2021.”

It has, however, still been a very difficult season for the team who currently sit ninth in the championship having scored just three points from two top-ten finishes and need at least five points to catch Alfa Romeo ahead in eighth.

This weekend’s race in Turkey sees teams racing on the fourth unfamiliar circuit in a row, following events at the Nürburgring, Portimão and Imola, and Steiner is hoping things can finally work out for them this time around.

“It’s like a lot of these late races, our drivers haven’t been to them,” said Steiner. “Imola wasn’t so great for us, but I would not put it down to us not knowing what we were doing because it was a new track – it was just the circumstances.

“Otherwise, I think it’s a great experience for the team to go somewhere new, it’s a great experience for the drivers. In the position we are in now, we just try to do our best and hopefully get home with some points.”

Before you go...

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