Steiner: ‘No point in developing the 2018 car’

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner has admitted that the team has moved towards developing their 2019 car, saying there is “no point” in continuing this year’s development.

With several changes coming for 2019, especially to the aerodynamic layout of the car, most teams have gone towards the 2019 car by now.

The team is currently in a battle with the Renault team for the ‘best of the rest’ slot, with the French team sitting in P4 for now.

Haas have now moved towards developing the 2019 car, though, in the hope that they can maintain their performance going into next season.

“We started the 2019 car a few weeks ago and there’s no point in developing the 2018 car any longer because if you do continue development, by the time you manufacture the parts, it’s near the end of the season,” Steiner said.

“The gains are too small to use the parts in only two or three races. We do have a few more parts coming, but that’s it for the development of the 2018 car.”

The Haas team will still be bringing some updates to the next few races this year, but the focus is now on next season.

“We will bring a few more to the next races. They will not be big updates, but we will keep bringing them like everybody else,” the Austrian added.

“We’ve learned to produce upgrades, bring them to the car, and have them working.

“This is a step that we have achieved in 2018 that we did not have in 2017.”

Steiner has said that the regulation changes coming into has not affected any planning for next season.

“Maybe we switched a few sessions before because if we were only making an evolution of the 2018 car for next year, with the same regulations, you could use whatever you learned this year for next year’s car,” he said.

“By changing regulations you need to start a little more fresh. So, you have to focus a little bit before and you cannot use what you developed for the 2018 car on the 2019 car.”

Follow us on Twitter @Planet_F1 and like our Facebook page.