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F1 Bahrain GP: Steiner confident Haas will progress in qualifying

Guenther Steiner is confident Haas can make more of an impact in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix after starting towards the back of the field on its F1 debut in Australia.

The American team, which went on to score a remarkable sixth place finish with Romain Grosjean in its maiden race, produced its landmark result despite struggling with the new elimination qualifying format, leaving the Frenchman and Esteban Gutierrez a lowly 19th and 20th on the grid.

However, team principal Steiner says a combination of operational errors, driver mistakes and car problems prevented Haas from showing its proper form, with the Austrian saying he is keen to show what the VF16's pace is over a single lap with the benefit of experience.

"We will make sure that over the Friday and Saturday, we make sure that we can make the turnaround quicker so if we should have a first lap scenario like what we had in Australia we can still get the second lap in.

"That is what we try to do and we just keep on working with it, and that is one of the things that we have to make good and that is one of the things we didn't do in Australia, we are conscious of that, we are not hiding from it, but we want to get it right this time and I hope that we succeed."

Furthermore, due to the red flag stop - following an incident involving Gutierrez - allowing Grosjean to make his one stop during the break essentially, Haas is yet to complete a racing pit-stop, something Steiner says needs to be practiced.

"With the pit stops I don't know if we have to improve because we haven't done one so it is difficult to say. We had quite a slow one because we didn't do one. The guys are better prepared than Australia so hopefully we will have time to do them during the free practice sessions."

Zdroj: crash.net