Haas plans to deliver a steady stream of upgrades throughout the 2023 season with a new front wing and revised floor ready to bolt onto the VF-23.
Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen have combined to score in three of the opening five races of the year to leave Haas seventh in the constructors’ championship.
Team boss Guenther Steiner has asserted that his team is capable of finishing points at every race.
That’s a point echoed by technical director Simone Resta who identified better execution coupled with its development plan as the keys to making Steiner’s comments a reality.
“You’ll see that we brought the new floor in Miami,” Resta told Speedcafe.
“We had some stuff planned for Imola with the modification of the front wing, also some parts on the floor again.
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“At the moment, I would say we are more thinking on a race-by-race basis where we bring some stuff.
“Then we’ll see; maybe there will be the condition to also bring a bigger package too – it’s too early to say now.
“We keep pushing, maximum attack to bring stuff on the track as soon as we’ve got something relevant.”
Delivering at the track
While developments are key to keeping pace with the sport, maximising it each weekend is critical.
There is little to cover the F1 midfield this year, with arguably six teams vying for the final two points-paying positions on any given weekend.
That places greater importance on the operation and execution of the team at the track from both an engineering and driver standpoint.
“In the very short term, when you look for example at the next race, I think we have to execute the weekend in a way that we get a better weekend,” Resta explained.
“That already will be a very big step.
“And you can see that the raw potential or the raw performance is there.
“Like Guenther says very often, we’ve got the potential to score points in every race, and then we keep on pushing for developments and trying to bring something in every race.
“That’s the problem for the next races, and I hope it will continue all the way to the end of the year.”
Current car versus 2024
The challenge in maintaining that pace, on the development front, is the need to switch focus to next year’s car.
Work on that project is already in train, with an ever-increasing number of the team’s finite resources slowly moving across while continuing to improve the performance of the current car.
“It’s not to say that it’s between zero and one, but progressively, week after week after week, you start moving progressively, in a continuous way, more and more, and so your resources, your focus, your thinking more and more onto the new car,” Resta said.
“This is a continuous process, and we are in the middle now because we’re already working on the new car for ’24.
“So whilst trying to keep a good flow of developments and thoughts and parts etcetera to the current car, we are starting to work more and more onto the new car for next year.”
After an unexpected week off due to the cancellation of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Formula 1 heads to Monaco this weekend.
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