Haas say McLaren and Renault have been lucky

Haas believes that their rivals have been lucky so far in 2018. The teams look set for a season-long battle with each other for supremacy in the midfield of Formula One and while McLaren might be ahead at this point, Haas don't believe that is down to raw pace.

The American outfit could have set the bar highest at the opening round in Australia until two pitstop mistakes put both of their drivers out of the race having been comfortably in the points.

Haas team principal Gunther Steinger told Motorsport.com that he thinks that the order the teams find themselves in is down to luck and a lack of it from his perspective.

"The first three races we were always there.

"At the moment it's between us, Renault and McLaren for fourth. I think the picture is quite clear as it stands at the moment and I hope we can finally pull one off because the other ones are getting lucky and we are getting unlucky.

"But we need to make our own luck, to be honest. Australia wasn't great and otherwise we would be where we should be."

The Chinese Grand Prix was also used as a point to show how Haas had been unfortunate in 2018, an ill-timed safety car for the team meant that they were at the mercy of those who could pit for fresh soft tyres.

"We need to keep on doing what we're doing.

"Every race we learn more about the tyres and we build up our knowledge base of the tyres from this year, and we have planned for upgrades on the car.

"Our whole plan this year is different from last year.

"Last year, we knew we wouldn't have many upgrades because we decided early in the season that we wouldn't bring that many updates as we turned our focus to next year's car.

"But this year, we made the decision early in the season that we will bring more updates.

"So, it's down to how good are our updates, but also how good are the updates of the opposition?"