Steiner reveals Haas ‘engines are missing’ in freight delay

Henry Valantine
F1 freight arrives at Interlagos. Brazil November 2021.

Freight lorries head onto the pit straight at Interlagos after arriving late. Brazil November 2021.

Guenther Steiner has confirmed F1 has waived its working curfew for Thursday night as teams have been delayed in building their cars – with Haas missing their engines.

Important components were due to travel between Mexico and Brazil earlier in the week, but Formula 1 say inclement weather conditions caused the flights to be postponed.

It has since been confirmed the delayed freight will arrive at Interlagos later on Thursday. Honda announced via social media their engines have now made it to the track, with Haas’ Ferrari power units on their way, but teams have already lost a lot of time from their usual preparations.

As a result, the Haas team principal revealed teams will be able to work into the night to get their cars ready in time for free practice on Friday.

“I don’t know exactly which car parts are missing but for sure the engines are missing,” said Steiner about how the delays have affected Haas, quoted by GPFans.

“I think the toolboxes were missing. Without the toolbox, you cannot work because that is going all in the air freight.

“So basically, we still cannot work on the cars. Even if some of the parts were there, we could not work on them because we don’t have the tools.

“The curfew has been waived for tonight.”

There are concerns about the pressure placed on Formula 1 staff during ‘triple-headers’ in the calendar, but freight operators are also worked hard to move the enormous amount of equipment used in the sport from track to track on tight time schedules.

Brazil sits in the middle of another run of three consecutive race weekends and Steiner explained the sport will learn its lessons from the delays experienced this week, with a long hop to Qatar coming next.

“I think this year, with the corona[virus], just to get this amount of races in, we had to do it because in the end it got tighter and tighter, everyone squeezed FOM and that is why they put them in.

 

“I think we will get out of this one okay, I would say. But for sure, FOM is looking at that to see if there is sometimes making a risk assessment to see if there is a risk that we cannot do something and for sure lessons will be learned out of this one.

“I think the next week [in Qatar] will be pretty tough. But if we have this issue next week, I think it has a bigger consequence.”

Formula 1 said in a statement they do not expect the freight delay to have a significant impact on the Sao Paulo Grand Prix weekend as a whole, and Friday’s sessions are still expected to take place as scheduled for the time being.

 

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