Steiner: Points gain doesn't tell full story of Haas progress

Haas Formula 1 chief Günther Steiner believes the points gain made by the American team through its second season does not tell the full story of the amount of progress it has made through the past year.

Haas made its F1 debut at the start of 2016, scoring 29 points through its debut year to finish eighth in the constructors' championship.

A stronger start to the season and points from both cars saw Haas match this score through the first half of the 2017 campaign, and while progress has slowed, the team now sits 18 points ahead of last year's total - albeit still eighth in the standings.

"I think points tell something, but not everything," Steiner said. "Even if we race the same teams, there are different levels of performance.

"I wouldn’t have said we’ve gotten better if we had less points, but looking in from the outside, I think we’ve made progress at all levels.

"We wanted to better our position, but at this moment in time we are equal, so sure we will try to get better in Abu Dhabi.

"I was hoping to better our end-of-season position by one spot."

Haas heads into next weekend's season finale in Abu Dhabi just two points behind Renaut in P7 in the constructors', with Toro Rosso a further four points ahead in sixth, putting both within reach.

"We will have a go at it," Steiner said.

"In Brazil, without the two accidents on lap one, I think we’d have had a good chance to get some points.

"Then again, we didn’t do it, so it’s just ‘if’ and ‘would’.

"We will, for sure, try hard in Abu Dhabi.”