The American-registered operation finished 10 and last in the constructors’ championship in a season that saw it change philosophy mid-season.
That saw effectively a B-spec car introduced for the United States Grand Prix as it looks to a different design approach for 2024.
Haas technical director SImone Resta told Speedcafe the team was planning a string of development parts through the season.
However, a change was forced when designers struggled to make inroads with the car it started the year with.
Strong over a single lap, it was prone to high tyre degradation, a byproduct of its good warmup.
Efforts made to engineer that trait out of the car were unsuccessful, with the VF-23 unresponsive to design changes.
“I was surprised,” Steiner confessed.
“The problem was, we didn’t find any performance in the development.
“It wasn’t that we didn’t want to or we couldn’t bring upgrades. We didn’t bring upgrades because bringing an upgrade and knowing that the car would not be any faster, there’s no point.
“I mean, obviously, that was a surprise that we didn’t make any progress in development in the wind tunnel.”
Had there been steps forward in the wind tunnel, Steiner insists those changes would have found their way on to the VF-23.
However, the fact that there were no gains galvanised the team’s decision to look at alternative solutions.
What resulted was a car with less downforce than the one it replaced, but with better balance.
It was a concept preferred by Kevin Magnussen, though Nico Hulkenberg reverted to the previous version following the United States Grand Prix.
“We used it [wind tunnel capacity] to bring this upgrade for Austin, which are a complete revamp of the car, of the bodywork,” Steiner said.
“We used the money there because that was a big one.
“Next year it’s a complete new car anyway, and we start from zero,” Steiner added of his drivers’ differing opinions on the B-spec VF-23.
“They both are very outspoken – I like this one, I like this one. I don’t argue anymore about next year, you start from zero and you need to develop the car, [so] that the car is faster and the drivers like it better.”
Haas goes in to the 2024 season with an unchanged lineup, Magnussen’s seventh with the team (across two stints) and Hulkenberg’s second.
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