Mick Schumacher faces a tough debut season in F1 as Haas team boss, Guenther Steiner admits that all development at the American team this year will focus on the 2022 car.

The news will come as a blow to the German youngster, and his Russian teammate, Nikita Mazepin, who will have seen predecessors, Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen struggle with an uncompetitive car throughout last season.

Other than an underpowered Ferrari power unit, the car was unimpressive from the get-go and in all honesty it was only a combination of strategic gambles, luck and the perseverance of its drivers that saw the American outfit finish ahead of Williams in the standings.

With Gene Haas rapidly becoming disillusioned with the sport, money is a problem and as a result there was little or no development of the car over the course of the season, instead the team said it was already focussing on 2022 and the new regulations.

Though this year's cars are essentially carried over from last season, a token system is in place to allow some development, however Guenther Steiner warns that they won't be used.

"We could have built a new nose, but we were too late," he tells Germany's Auto Motor und Sport. "The wind tunnel program had been shut down too long for us to have the nose ready before the deadline at the end of September."

However, should pre-season testing reveal any serious issues, he admits the situation could change.

"It can happen that we have to work on the 2021 car again if we discover during the test drives that we have made a mistake," he admits. "That would be plan B. Actually, we don’t want to use any more wind tunnel time for the 2021 car."

Yesterday it was revealed that due to the current travel restrictions as a result of the pandemic, Ferrari is unable to send technicians over to Banbury to install and fire-up the new power unit.

LATEST NEWS

more news >

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

Click to go to the main galleries section

READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Tardis40, 04/02/2021 19:56

"Well, it will give Schumacher a chance to show what kind of a driver he is."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

2. Posted by Superbird70, 03/02/2021 1:30

"I thought Mazepin Sr. had deep pockets, but maybe he has short arms?"

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

3. Posted by Lakota, 02/02/2021 22:36

"Great . Another chit show coming . How can you look forward to fighting for 16th place every week ?"

Rating: Positive (2) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

4. Posted by ChickenFarmerF1, 02/02/2021 16:50

"@Spindoctor - no kidding. He'll be battling with the Williams, hopefully.

Which is a heck of a sad statement on Williams. How the mighty have fallen."

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

5. Posted by F1 Yank, 02/02/2021 16:37

"What I would like to see is allowing the lower half of the grid (Alpha Romeo, Haas, Williams, Alpha Tauri,) to develop their cars and see how much the grid tightens up! But really no development means everyone else will just continue to move up the grid while your team moves back. Haas may be onto something here though, Ross Brawn did the same thing!"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

6. Posted by Spindoctor, 02/02/2021 14:46

"I have considerable sympathy for Mick Schumacher. Hardly a great way to start your F1 career."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

7. Posted by Alisissa, 02/02/2021 13:51 (moderated by an Adminstrator, 02/02/2021 13:57)

"This comment was removed by an administrator as it was judged to have broken the site's posting rules and etiquette."

Rating: Positive (1)

Haas not planning to develop 2021 car

LATEST NEWS

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

POST A COMMENT

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

Share this page