Haas Could Achieve 'Top Mid-Field Next Year' Steiner Asserts

Thursday, 28 December 2023 at 23:00

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner said he believes his team could achieve the top of the mid-field during the 2024 season.

Sauber's technical director, James Key, lately mentioned that the whole F1 grid is immensely close at the moment, which means the teams can easily gain a few positions if they get some aspects right.

Haas's team principal, Guenther Steiner, pointed out in a recent interview with Sky Sports, "Everything is possible," as we could observe significant progress during the 2023 season from other teams like AlphaTauri or McLaren.

"With the budget cap in place now, everything is possible. AlphaTauri end of the season, McLaren beginning of the season, they didn’t start strong then at some stage they were the second fastest car out there, more than once."

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McLaren started the most recent season worse than Haas. But as opposed to the American team, they brought effective upgrades that allowed Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to achieve nine podiums.

While the Haas team principal doesn't see competing against the top four or top five teams so achievable, he believes the rest of the grid is at pretty much the same level as his team.

"Everything is possible. The big teams is always the big teams, for the next three to five years they will be always at the front, but the midfield… I don’t think there is top teams, midfield and backmarkers anymore."

In 2023, we saw drivers from every single team quite frequently in the final part of qualifying which did not use to be the case in the past when F1 did not have the budget cap regulations in place. Steiner added:

"There is top teams and the rest in my opinion now because everybody is in a good place financially as a business [and] technically. We ended up last this year but we could end up in the top mid-field next year."