Haas’ Guenther Steiner says the nature of Formula 1 tyres is making life a “rollercoaster” due to its inconsistent results in 2019.
Haas led the midfield group on pure qualifying pace in Australia, Bahrain and Spain but has sometimes struggled, plummeting rearwards in race trim in Bahrain and Azerbaijan.
It also failed to trouble the points in Canada, albeit its prospects hampered by Kevin Magnussen’s Q2 crash and Romain Grosjean getting caught up in the outcome of Turn 1 contact.
Haas has now slipped to eighth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
“I go back to the tyres, they are for us so inconsistent and I think it’s in general,” said Steiner.
“One car is very quick, and the next race he is nowhere. It seems like it’s all over the board. When you’re on a high, you think you’ve figured it out, and then you’re back to reality. It’s such a rollercoaster.
“If you look at Monte Carlo, in qualifying you’re not even two tenths off a Ferrari. In Canada, how many seconds we were off it? Must be something in there. Not only the car, it’s the tyres.
“Ferrari didn’t have a bad car in Monte Carlo. Maybe they didn’t get the tyres to work there and we did. It’s very sporadic what is happening.
“The general level of confidence is in theory we should be ok but can I tell you with knowledge we are ok? No. Because we don’t know when they work and when they don’t work.”
Some teams have suggested that Pirelli should revert to its 2018-specification tyres, though the manufacturer has insisted it has had no such formal request.
Pirelli moved to a thinner gauge tyre for 2019 and also moved its softest compound to a slightly harder specification, while also combatting blistering.
But Steiner is unconvinced that such a move would work, even if it received the required approval from all parties.
“A lot of people are asking to go back to last year’s tread of tyres because they seem to be more consistent,” commented Steiner.
“It cannot only be us. Maybe some were OK today so you stop complaining. It’s just inconsistency. It doesn’t make me happier, that other people do not understand it.
“Realistically it makes sense, [but] by regulation it has to be a safety issue otherwise we cannot do it. Unanimous, it will never be.
“Going back to last year’s tyres, I’m not sure that will be the final solution because they weren’t fantastic last year, which is why we changed them, so we have to be careful what we wish for.
“I think we need to find out what we want before we say we go back to last year’s one. Then we get them we complain, because that doesn’t make us look clever. In the end, you need to be careful.”
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