Formula 1 team owner Gene Haas admits he can’t understand the deficit between the midfield and top three outfits, comparing their fight to an “F1.5” series.
The American squad is currently battling with Renault, Force India, Sauber and Toro Rosso but only for positions 7-10 in qualifying and the race such in the stranglehold Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull have on the top six places.
So far this season, only the retirement of both Mercedes’ and Daniel Ricciardo in Austria allowed Haas to score their best finish with fourth and fifth while Sergio Perez is the only midfield driver with a podium coming back in Baku.
“I feel we are not really racing F1, we are racing F1.5, so if we were to finish fourth that would be a win in our series,” Gene said ahead of his home race in Austin.
Efforts are underway to try and level the playing field through a budget cap and other measures in 2021 but Haas concedes even he is lost when it comes to how to close the gap.
“When I watch some of the races, and see how fast the top three teams just blow by on the race track, you are just somewhat aghast and like ‘wow, how did we miss that?’,” he claimed.
“I don’t know how those cars are so much faster.
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“If I talked to Ayao [Komatsu, engineer], he says you have got a couple of tenths on your tyres, you have got a couple of tenths on your aero and your chassis is off a couple of tenths. That is your second or two.
“I know that we put a huge effort into trying to address all those parameters, but I don’t see how we are ever going to make up 1.5-2 seconds off these guys,” Gene concluded.
“They are just so much faster.”
In qualifying at the Circuit of the Americas, Romain Grosjean was the lead Haas in eighth but almost exactly two seconds slower than Lewis Hamilton’s pole position time.