The Haas Formula 1 team says its continued strong showing during its second season in the sport proves their model works and was the right choice.
The American outfit made its debut last year and shocked the field when it scored in the first two races of the season, with Romain Grosjean following up sixth place in Australia by taking fifth in Bahrain.
The team scored 29 points in total and finished eighth in the standings, albeit some 34 points adrift of seventh, and although the team currently holds eighth once more with one race remaining in 2017, it has amassed 47 points, just two adrift of Renault and six shy of Toro Rosso.
Whilst team boss Guenther Steiner admits points don't tell the whole story, he insists the operation has made strong progress this year.
"I think points tell something, but not everything," said Steiner. "Even if we race the same teams, there are different levels of performance.
"I wouldn’t have said we’ve gotten better if we had less points, but looking in from the outside, I think we’ve made progress at all levels.
"We wanted to better our position, but at this moment in time we are equal, so sure we will try to get better in Abu Dhabi. I was hoping to better our end-of-season position by one spot."
Steiner says that in laying the foundations during its rookie campaign, Haas ensured that it did not regress this year.
"The year-to-year challenges are different," he commented. "We have to adapt as we do this. If you cannot keep up with the challenges, you shouldn’t be working in Formula 1.
"The second year is always more difficult, but we knew this in year one. I think we successfully worked in year one so we didn’t fall back in year two.
"It shows this is a model that is, at least, not wrong. If there is a better model out there – for sure, there is always something better – but our model works. What we set out to do, we’re doing."
