The Haas F1 team’s excellent start to the season, with Kevin Magnussen being able to score points in all 4 races so far, has attracted several interested eyes from rival teams.
After two seasons in the slums of Formula 1, the team led by Guenther Steiner has returned to give excellent signals thanks to a project, the VF-22, perhaps not too interesting in terms of design, but tremendously effective.
This has raised several questions in different teams regarding the relationship between Ferrari and Haas. The Maranello team provides the American team with power units, gearboxes and other rear-end components and teams like McLaren have made no secret of their perplexities in reviewing the white-red cars today so competitive after the farewell to Uralkali at the beginning of the season.
Andreas Seidl, McLaren team principal, stressed how team relations – such as that between Ferrari and Haas – can give potential advantages not only to smaller teams, but also to top teams.
“There are two things to consider,” said the German team principal when asked about the relationships between the different teams. “This allows the B teams to be less busy. By putting less effort, they can outperform. But even more worrying is that the A teams can also benefit from this relationship.”
“This is obviously the most worrying thing, even considering our ambitions as a team. I hope that solutions can be found, because clearly our goal is not to have a B team. I hope that F1 never ends. being in a situation where it is necessary to have a team B to fight for the top “.
Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-22, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL36, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18
Photo by: Erik Junius
“For us it is just a matter of principle in which the FIA and the teams have to decide what the future of Formula 1 should be. And again, our position has not changed and has nothing to do with the current sporting performance of the teams.” .
“I want to emphasize this. Haas deserves all the results they are getting at the moment because there are regulations in place and if they are satisfied there is nothing to complain about. Which we are not doing either.”
“It’s about principle and things it should be in the future. Once again we think that F1 should be a constructors’ championship. This means that everything related to the performance of the cars. Everything that is relevant to the performance of the single-seaters. it should be done by teams, by specific teams. “
“This means that you should only be allowed to share power units and internal gearbox components. That would make sense.”
But that’s not all, because Seidl is particularly wary of teams sharing facilities like wind tunnels: “Things like sharing infrastructure should be banned, because there are a lot of things that can’t be controlled properly.” .
“And the things that cannot be adequately controlled should be prohibited, because in this way we would have greater clarity. And then we could also avoid the discussion about what happens inside them. It would be cleaner.”
Meanwhile, after several doubts on the part of numerous teams about the work of the Haas team, Simone Resta – technical director of the US team – defended the team he works for, underlining how the engineers have always worked within the regulation, without ever breaking it in any way.
“You know, honestly, I am only interested in my job, the work we are doing with a car, trying to improve it, trying to give the drivers a better car. All of these things are on a different level than I am currently working on. Yes, we know the rules we must respect, we respect them and we move forward “, the Italian engineer immediately clarified.
“There’s not much to say. You look at the pictures, you look and you see a lot of cars with a lot of similarities. You know, it’s … what would you say? I think everyone has to do a good job and focus on themselves. And I suppose, you know, that for a team like ours that is struggling with midfield teams maybe someone didn’t expect it. And yes, that’s the way it goes. We just have to push performance and do a better job and then the car will continue to be competitive “.
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