Whereas Haas F1 Team getting ready to publish the first images of its 2023 livery before the official presentation of the new VF-23, which will take place later, the American team has great ambitions for the coming campaign. Indeed, the new technical regulations allowed Haas to return to the midfield and to perform well following two worrying seasons. Signing a contract with a new title sponsorthe money transfer company MoneyGram, has bailed out the coffers and should help the team to hit the budget cap limitset at $137.4 million in 2023 before revaluation.
However, as director Günther Steiner pointed out to Motorsport.com, this fresh money will not revolutionize Haas’ very particular modus operandi. The Italian clarified: “We want to invest the money in the car. Right now everything we have we invest in the car. We don’t want to do anything else at the moment. We want to stabilize our system and make sure that we use everything to make the car go fast, nothing else.”
Since its integration into the F1 World Championship in 2016, Haas has delegated the construction of its chassis to Dallara and purchased from Ferrari the maximum number of coins allowed by the rules. Moreover, the links between the two teams have only gone from strength to strength in recent years, especially with the arrival of Haas employees in offices in Maranello.
“We don’t focus on other things [en nous disant] ‘Oh, we want to do this ourselves’, no”Steiner said. “Let’s stabilize the way we do today and if we want to change something, let’s do it later because otherwise, if we try to do too much, we’re going to be broke. For now, we “We stick to the model, we make the most of it. If we can find savings or better investments within the budget cap by designing some parts ourselves, then we’ll do that later. But not right now.” “
The arrival of MoneyGram offers more stability to Haas, following a turbulent period with its previous sponsors: for various reasons, all of which sparked controversy, its agreements with Rich Energy and Uralkali did not come to an end.
Has Haas’ current state of health ever been better? To this question, Steiner replied: “I would say that we have never been in a bad position. The year 2020 has not been easy due to the pandemic that has broken out but I think [l’arrivée de MoneyGram] puts us in a very good position. Is it the best or not? […] When we arrived in 2016, there was no budget cap, so we were much lower than other teams, even though we were in a good financial situation. Now, compared to others, we are also financially very competitive. Not competitive, we are tied.”
With Luke Smith
