Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has vowed to crack the tyre misery Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen again endured during the F1 Canadian Grand Prix.
Following the Spanish Grand Prix earlier this month, Steiner conceded to Speedcafe that he was at a loss to understand the VF-23 he described as “very, very weird”.
It has been discovered the car has a propensity to rapidly degrade its tyres when in traffic, an issue that again reared its ugly head around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Despite starting a superb fifth on the grid – that after being penalised three places for a red-flag infringement during qualifying – Nico Hulkenberg finished a lap down in 15th.
Team-mate Kevin Magnussen was a further two positions further back in 17th, with the Dane falling three places after lining up 14th.
Steiner feels his team now at least has a better understanding of what the problem is but now it becomes a question of how quickly it can be solved.
“Obviously the result is not what we should be doing and it’s very disappointing,” said Steiner.
“The issue is as soon as we get into traffic and behind cars, our degradation is immense. We cannot get the tyre performance back and we just slip back.
“We can clearly see it, as soon as we get away from free air and start to fight, we just degrade.
“I think we know where to look, what we need to look for, and we’ll be looking for it.
“We need to put our heads together and try to find a solution to this and not hide behind good qualifying results.”
Despite the promise of his qualifying performance, Hulkenberg was left to lament a race he described as “a one-way street in the wrong direction”.
The German driver added: “It was to some extent expected, but we obviously always hope for the best so that it’s better than what you had in the previous event.
“It just again confirms that we have a lot of work to do on the long run pace and entire consistency because that’s really hurting our Sunday.”
Whilst getting temperature into the tyres appeared to be an issue for many drivers, the Haas has an altogether different problem that is undermining its Sundays.
“We were just lacking pace to where we want to be and we struggled with tyres again, at least more than the others, so it was a tough one,” assessed Magnussen.
“I think over one lap we have really good pace, we’ve shown that several times this season, but we need to work hard on trying to keep that strength for Sunday.”
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