Haas needs to learn to play with F1’s ‘big boys’ - Steiner 

Guenther Steiner believes Haas still needs to get used to competing with Formula 1’s “big boys” teams, having been unable to make the most of its 2018 car’s performance. 

Following up on a promising pre-season, Haas has boasted one of the strongest packages out of the midfield runners during the opening four rounds of the season but has often failed to capitalise on the potential of its VF-18. 

Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean had been running comfortably inside the top five at Melbourne’s season-opener until a pair of pitstop errors forced both cars into retirement, while loose bodywork hampered the latter in Bahrain.

Grosjean crashed out from sixth place under the final Safety Car period last time out in Baku, while Magnussen missed out on points following a series of incidents that caused damage to his car. As a result, the American squad has scored just 11 points and sits eighth in the constructors’ standings. 

“I think we have big boy drivers, just at the moment we can't get it together, everything to gel," Steiner explained. “In Australia we had the pitstop problem, we sorted that one - then we didn't have a problem. We just need to get it all in one race.

"We do things very good and then we miss on one [thing]. That's maybe the [thing to] learn now, to play with the big boys, what we need to learn. Because we are only in our third year.

"This is not an excuse, this is just reality. I think we need to get a little bit sharper on it. Maybe not sharper, I think we are sharp, but tie it all up together. We just need to get it once, [put] everything together, and then we will shine."

Steiner said Grosjean’s costly mistake during a crazy Azerbaijan Grand Prix was “not something you expect from anybody in F1” and believes Haas’ results so far this season have not justified the performance its car is capable of. 

“I think we are not using the potential of the car to get in the points. We should be quite well up there because the car is performing very well,” Steiner added. 

“In the race we saw we started last and were P8 with Romain behind [Sergio] Perez. That was on speed because everybody had one stop. Then the Safety Car comes out and we are in P6 all of a sudden but then we go home with nothing.”