Haas hoping for ‘boring races’ in bid to beat Renault to fourth

Haas boss Günther Steiner is hoping for “boring Formula 1 races” to enable his team to make the most out of its car’s potential and lower the risk of mistakes. 

The American squad appears to boast the strongest overall package out of the midfield teams but on many occasions it has failed to optimise the strengths of its 2018 challenger into strong results. 

While the team has enjoyed its most successful season to date, it has managed just one double points finish this year in Austria, with Renault picking up more consistent results across the opening 11 races to sit 21 points clear in fourth place.

Haas recorded its best-ever qualifying result in Germany and started fifth and sixth on the Hockenheim grid, only to come away with just one car in the top 10 after a late rain shower turned the race on its head.  

“I wish for boring races now to be completely honest - settle in and just drive until the end,” Steiner said. “We just need to make less mistakes, get a little bit lucky. Less mistakes from the team side and less mistakes from the drivers side and then we can get there.

“Its two points a race that we need to make a difference and on a good weekend and we qualify fifth and sixth, I know Lewis and Ricciardo should normally qualify in Q3 and that should normally take you points. 

“I fully admit that we missed out on too many points because we never double-scored. But if we get it right in the second half of the season and double score all the time then it shouldn’t be too difficult. But it isn’t this easy.” 

Steiner described Haas’ German Grand Prix result as damage limitation as it lost further ground to chief midfield rivals Renault.

“I think they come from everywhere but in Germany, with the rain coming, we are in a position where you can just get it wrong. Because you cannot take risks and you play on the fence but playing on the fence you never gain,” he explained. 

"You always lose out so it’s one of these positions. Should we risk full and then I sit here and maybe we would have lost 10 points to Renault. So we lost two. You try to limit the damage on races like this.”

Steiner admitted Haas took a cautious approach with its strategy by double-stacking both its drivers in the closing stages in Germany in order to avoid "looking like zeroes". 

“The decision taken to get them in together, let’s not do anything stupid which could work out great, all of a sudden you are third,” he added. “But it could work out stupid and all of a sudden you have zero points. I think the risk to have zero points was higher than the opportunity to finish up third.

“We just try to be cautious about it, because in these situations you can never gain. We need a bit of luck. Like in Germany, without rain, it’s fine. Then the rain comes and then we are in a position where we could look like heroes or zeroes. 

“Because if we were zeroes here you guys would have said are you stupid and I would have said yes. I don’t want to be in that position and you just need to try to do what you can in this moment in time.”