Guenther Steiner says Haas’ current Formula 1 predicament is akin to a football team playing with 11 defenders – and still being unable to defend.
Haas claimed fifth in last year’s Constructors’ Championship but has slumped to ninth this season amid problems with its recalcitrant VF-19.
Haas has struggled with tyre performance in race trim while it ran into strife with its in-season development, often running split car specifications in a bid to understand its weaknesses.
The team has scored just two points across the last eight races.
“I would be happy [if there was] one [race] to go but we have two to go,” said Steiner.
“It’s tough at the moment, we are just working on the defence and that’s difficult.
“It’s like having a football team with 11 defenders and nobody in attack, and everyone attacks you and you cannot do anything.
“You just try to do damage limitation and if everybody else does a good job then that doesn’t work because you cannot do anything.
“Then every strategy you do is wrong because you still fall back.”
Steiner added that his “thing is to not get too upset about the situation because that’s not good. It’s tough.
“You know what you can do but it maybe makes you appreciate the good days more when they come back.
“You need to go through the lows to appreciate the highs sometimes and it’s easy to forget about that.
“It’s like on Sundays, we know now that if not everything goes perfect we struggle and fall back. You cannot do anything about it. We are sitting there like a lame duck.”
Discussion about this post