Guenther Steiner slates F1 rivals for moaning over Haas test extension

Haas

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Steiner slates F1 rivals for moaning over Haas test extension

Haas will be able to accrue track time lost due to freight delays

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Friday 11 March 2022 15:45

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has criticised rivals for complaining about the fairness of the team's added running to make up for lost time.

F1 returned to track action for the second pre-season test in Bahrain without Haas due to the team being delayed by freight issues.

Pietro Fittipaldi emerged from the pits in the afternoon on day one, with Haas hoping to be granted an opportunity to regain the time lost with extra running.

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After a request to take to the track on Sunday morning was rejected in a team vote, a compromise was found with the team set to run extra hours on Friday night, Saturday morning and Saturday night.

Steiner seemed less than happy with the resolution, however, stating: "We lost a morning and now we get bits and pieces.

"We got, already, penalised, by having two days less to work on the car. Because of the freight, obviously, we didn't have any cars.

"So now, to make up for that, some of the guys have stayed up 30 hours to make it happen, so that we could get to the track at least yesterday afternoon and now these guys have got longer hours to work.

"Obviously, if you test 11 hours one day, it is different when you need to prepare your cars and then Saturday night, we test two hours longer so we have two hours less to prepare the parts to send back to the UK.

"We never asked for a night session or anything like this, we just asked for a Sunday morning which would make up for the Thursday morning we lost so the time, I think it would have been a much fairer solution for everybody."

Steiner also revealed there had been additional complaints about Haas being granted extra hours to run at night when conditions offer more representative data for next week's grand prix.

Steiner added: "Our opinion is that we didn't do anything wrong here, we ended up in a bad place, or the test should have been postponed because we were not there on the first day.

"The decisions were made too late to do that.

"We will get by. I don't want to be here crying because I don't cry but some people should think before they make comments about fairness."