Haas team boss Guenther Steiner admits their current tyre issues could be exaggerated in Azerbaijan.

Despite sitting as the fourth best team in qualifying at the opening two races and making Q3 in China, the American outfit has struggled for race pace at the past two Grands Prix.

As a result, only Kevin Magnussen's P6 in Melbourne and the unpredictable order in the midfield has kept Haas within four points of P4.

"We understood the problem after Bahrain but we couldn’t fix it in time for here [Shanghai], we still need to work on it," Steiner said.

"We didn’t have this in winter testing, as the track is completely different to these tracks like Bahrain, here and Baku.

"Baku is even worse - I’m readying myself for the disappointment. I hope we find something before Baku. At these race tracks, we can’t get energy into the tyre."

With the tyres very sensitive to just a few degrees of temperature change, finding and staying in the temperature window is the issue and, as Steiner explained...

"It’s high-speed tracks with long straights and low energy corners where we can’t get the heat into the tyres. That’s what it is,” the Haas boss said.

"In winter testing, even if it was cold in Barcelona, you load the tyres a lot, you have the energy to put in, you can keep the heat in it.

"In Australia, the temperature is higher and it was fine. But in Bahrain and here, it just doesn’t work."