Haas opted to keep Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen for 2020 because “they couldn’t have done better” this season.
The American outfit slumped to ninth in the Constructors’ standings in 2019 as tyre problems meant they struggled with race pace throughout the year.
At times, confrontation between the two drivers also hampered Haas, with the pair taking each other out at Silverstone, but that was overlooked due to the overarching performance issues.
“I think in no way can I attribute our not-so-good season to them, and therefore we stayed with the same driver pairing,” said team boss Guenther Steiner via Motorsport Week.
“I think we need to be honest and say they couldn’t have done better with the car.
“You always can do better when you’re not running into each other, but they just tried too hard at some stage.
“I don’t think I can jump to a conclusion that they didn’t do a good job this year.”
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The second half of this season was largely about experimentation to try and avoid a repeat of the same issues again in 2020.
And Magnussen is trying to use past successes as motivation to believe their position will improve.
“Last year (2018) we got P5 in the Constructors’ Championship. I think that’s pretty impressive and I don’t think many teams have done that in their third year,” the Dane told Formula1.com.
“So we’ve got to take some confidence from that as well and just build on the experience that we have had this year and the learning that we have done and then just come back stronger next year.
“You always learn in any situation, but especially when it’s difficult you learn different things and you just have to approach your problems in a different way
“I think that gives you strength and some experience that you wouldn’t necessarily have gotten if you were just cruising and driving in a perfect car. So in many ways, it’s also been positive, both for me as a driver and for the team as well.
“I’ve got faith in the team and I think they’re going to do a great job [in 2020]. We need to keep pushing, keep being honest with ourselves, and don’t lose track of what we’ve learned.”