Steiner sees "no point" in developing further in 2018

Gunther Steiner says that his Haas team are already concentrating on building their 2019 car, despite fourth place still being up for grabs in the 2018 Constructors’ Championship.

Haas, in only their third season of Formula One have been impressive this year, with only bad luck preventing them from scoring plenty more points.

Haas are fifth in the constructors’ standings, only 16 points behind fourth-placed Renault in the race to be the best of the rest behind the three big teams of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

Despite the chance to grab fourth from Renault and the opportunity of millions more prize money, Steiner says attention has already switched to the 2019 car, with Haas looking to make further strides in 2019.

“We started the 2019 car a few weeks ago and there’s no point in developing the 2018 car any longer because if you do continue development, by the time you manufacture the parts, it’s near the end of the season,” Steiner said.

“The gains are too small to use the parts in only two or three races. We do have a few more parts coming, but that’s it for the development of the 2018 car.”

Haas have been helped recently by the return to form of Frenchman Romain Grosjean, who has scored 21 points in the last four races after a drought at the start of the year.

Steiner also spoke about the last updates that will be added to the car this year: “They will not be big updates, but we will keep bringing them like everybody else. We’ve learned to produce upgrades, bring them to the car, and have them working. This is a step that we have achieved in 2018 that we did not have in 2017.”