Guenther Steiner braced for a "very tight" midfield battle in F1 2020

Guenther Steiner has taken one thing away from pre-season testing in Barcelona: the midfield is "very tight". With problems on the car and poor development, Haas missed out on the midfield battle in 2019 but they're hoping they can make a mark in this weekend's Australian Grand Prix.

“One thing is sure this year, in terms of what we can see after testing, is that the midfield is very tight. I can’t say where we stack up in the midfield, maybe somebody else can, but it’s very difficult to predict. We’ll just find out when we go qualifying in Melbourne," Steiner said.

But qualifying might not be the accurate test Steiner is looking for. Flashback 12 months and Romain Grosjean started the race in P6, one place ahead of teammate Kevin Magnussen. The Danish driver went on to finish the race in sixth. That's as good as it got for the American team within 21 races.

“Melbourne is always the unknown for me. We’ve had fantastic results there and we’ve been on our way to some strong results before we messed up. We’ve really had a little bit of everything there. I always like to go to Melbourne, even with the mixed results. I always find it an interesting race; you never know what you’re getting out of it," he added.