Haas: 2019 car is the strangest ever

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner admits the team are baffled by the behaviour of their 2019 VF-19, which he says is the “strangest” car he has ever worked with in his career.

The team may have secured a double points finish at the German Grand Prix on Sunday, despite Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen colliding (again), but they are still languishing in eighth in the constructors’ championship.

In order to understand the car better, they have split the set-ups for each driver, but Steiner says they are still none-the-wiser after the race in Hockenheim.

“We are not through on that one,” he responded when asked if comparing the two cars provided any significant insight.

“If we were that good to have the comparison already we would be quite a good team. This takes days to look into.

“But we did want to do it to see if we see anything different in the comparison, but it’s too early to say. We do have the data.

“If we had fully understood it we would know what to do next. We’re still to understand where we are with it. This is the strangest car I have ever worked with.”

The Austrian says the main reason for the bafflement is the drop in performance from qualifying over to the race proper.

“You can qualify sixth, which in reality is eighth, I know that, but we qualify fifth sometimes and then in the race you just drop off to second last. It’s amazing you know?” he mused.

“There hasn’t been many times a car like this has been around. I don’t remember anything like this and therefore it is even more difficult because you cannot even go back.

“If we are always slow… but in qualifying Kevin without the lock-up would have made it into Q3 pretty easy, but then again in the race we end up being slow. I’m baffled.”

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