Ferrari's 2017 engine may be better than Mercedes, says Haas F1 boss
Haas F1 boss Guenther Steiner believes that Ferrari’s 2017 engine is as good as the Mercedes – and might even be better.
Sebastian Vettel’s win in Australia showed that the Italian team has made huge progress over the winter, and customer Haas has benefited.
“With the engine, there is not just one area that is better, it’s the whole package that has improved from last year,” said Steiner. “It’s now as competitive as a Mercedes engine, if not better. Ferrari won in Australia, but everybody is developing and trying to get better. It’s always going to be a development race. They’ve made a good step, and without that help from Ferrari, we wouldn’t be where we are.”
Steiner says Haas chassis supplier Dallara has also made a big step: “We just did what everybody does, but I think we made a bigger step. For us and Dallara, modern F1 was new last year. We made some mistakes and we were a little bit conservative on some parts, but we learned quickly. We’ve done a lot of things better than last year. What came out is a car which seems to be competitive.”
Steiner believes that the Australian qualifying performance proved that the team can build on last year and silence the critics.
“We were hoping to get into Q3, but we weren’t sure because it’s so tight in the midfield. Then to be sixth, with this distance to our next competitor, four-tenths, it surprised us. Obviously, we need to keep it up, or we need to try to do it again, to prove that this is where we should be. It will be difficult to keep that pace, or that distance, or even get into Q3 all the time because it’s very competitive.
“There will always be doubters. We’ll always be told that next year will be more difficult, and then we have to prove it again. You have to prove yourself every year in Formula One. Again, qualifying sixth in the first race of 2017 quieted our critics a little bit. They will come back, but we proved we didn’t just get lucky last year.”
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