Haas F1 Team Principal Guenther Steiner is sure the American outfit has made progress in their second season on the grid, even if the results achieved in 2017 may not reflect it.

It has been a steadier year in terms of performance with greater consistency compared to 2016 but it has been lower down the order without the standout finishes which Romain Grosjean famously managed at the beginning of last season.

With just one race to go, Haas has 18 more points compared to 12 months ago but continue to sit eighth in the Constructors' standings, the same position they finished in last year.

Reflecting on the reason why Steiner puts it down to a greater amount of competition in the midfield and believes that has hidden the improvements made.  

"I think points tell something, but not everything," he said. "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."

Ahead of the season finale, Haas is just six points behind Toro Rosso who are two places in front in sixth the Teams' Championship but, to overhaul that gap, will have to match their best finish of the year, a sixth for Grosjean in Austria, to have any chance.

“We will have a go at it," Steiner insists. "In Brazil, without the two accidents on Lap 1, I think we’d have had a good chance to get some points. Then again, we didn’t do it, so it’s just ‘if’ and ‘would’. We will, for sure, try hard in Abu Dhabi.”