Haas F1 Team Principal Guenther Steiner is hoping the Anglo-American outfit can capitalise on a “frail” situation at Renault in their battle with the works team and Toro Rosso for sixth in the Constructors’ Championship at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The French manufacturer is somewhat limping to the end of the season after a number of engine problems in recent races resulted in a shortage of spare parts and the introduction of measures aimed at better-guaranteeing reliability in the final races.
Unable to race at 100%, that could leave Haas, who sit eighth in the teams’ standings – six points behind the junior Red Bull team and just two shy of Renault, in a position to leapfrog at least one of those teams and gain all-important prize money.
“With the engine, we don’t have an issue,” Steiner said of the Ferrari units in the back of their cars via Autosport. “You can always have a failure, but there’s not a bigger risk than there was at the races before. The engine this year was pretty reliable.
“Renault seems to be a little bit frail at the moment in all three teams, so that can come our way but we still need to get our car in the points.”
Indeed, for all the high hopes, Haas has only scored points once in the last three races and only two double points results in the entire 2017 season.
“Even if they finish behind us and we are 11th and 12th, nothing changes so we need to do a very good race weekend and then hope that maybe they’ve got some issues,” Steiner added.