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F1 US GP: Steiner hails front wing gains as ‘very significant’

Haas team principal Gunther Steiner believes its new front wing has enabled both drivers to find useful improvements over a single hot lap and race pace after fine tuning the update in Japan.

The American F1 team heads to its maiden home event this weekend at Circuit of the Americas - where Romain Grosjean will also celebrate his 100th F1 Grand Prix - with the squad in a positive mood having unlocked potential from its new front wing which was introduced in Singapore.

Steiner says the front wing's gains were only fully achieved during trouble-free running at Suzuka in free practice sessions having been disrupted in both Singapore and Malaysia and he wants Haas to use this update to make its home fans proud in Austin.

"I think it was very significant [front wing update]," Steiner said. "The delay in getting it to work is like when you are at a grand prix and you have problems in FP1 and FP2 - you focus on trying to find out what the tyre is doing and the data on the tyre and basic things.

"You cannot develop a new part on the car. We had problems in FP1 and FP2 in Singapore and Malaysia, so we didn't do a good job of finding out about the wing. But in Japan, we had good practice sessions and, sure enough, the wing came alive in Japan.

"We want to show well and do a good job, and what we mainly want to do is attract more of the public to not only watch Haas F1 Team, but to come out and watch F1 in general. I hope a lot of people are following us."

Relishing the prospect of being fan favourites at its first home race in F1, Steiner has encouraged more races to be held in USA due to its commercial potential. 

Zdroj: crash.net