Haas team boss Guenther Steiner is confident a strong pre-season would be representative of progress after a troubled 2019.
The American outfit started last year as the fourth-best team in Australia but that optimism soon faded as poor pace on Sundays saw them finish a lowly ninth in the Constructors’ Championship.
Haas’ main problem appeared to be the tyres, but it was later acknowledged that the car itself had flaws which were not picked up by the team, leading to the wrong development path.
And with this year’s winter tests are set to begin on Wednesday, Steiner does believe the data will be trustworthy.
“Obviously, after a season like 2019, it’s good to get going again with a fresh start,” he began in a Q&A released by Haas, striking an optimistic tone.
“We’ve tried to apply into the new car some of the things we learned at the end of the season when we had development parts on the car.
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“Last year we had a good test, and the early races were good – then it went south,” he noted.
“What we’ve learned is how to look at things better, and how to analyze our data better to see if we’re on the right track or if we’re headed in the wrong direction. We also learned as well to listen to our drivers, that sometimes helps a lot.”
It was driver Romain Grosjean who sounded the early concerns with last year’s car that would go unheard, and he heads to Barcelona eager to see if the new Haas is on a better path.
“It’s important to get a good first feel of the car, you want to feel comfortable in a new car,” he said of his approach.
“We’re normally quite effective at knowing quickly if the car is good or not. I think [last year] issues were masked by the fact that we had been fast in Barcelona at the start of the year.
“Then in some races we were fast but in others not. We’ll use testing to cover as many different scenarios as we can.”
His teammate Kevin Magnussen was less insightive, instead simply declaring his optimism that 2020 will be better.
“I’m very excited for the test this year. I’m confident we’ll have a good car,” said the Dane.
“Hopefully we’ve learned from the mistakes of last year so we can have a good season but I’m very confident on that.”