Haas has revealed its two drivers will run separate cars at this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, with Nico Hulkenberg to revert to the old-specification VF-23.
The American outfit currently languish bottom of the Constructors’ Championship with just 12 points, having only scored a solitary point across the past 11 rounds.
Despite introducing a heavily revised Red Bull-inspired upgrade package in Austin last month, Haas has been unable to discover a remedy to counter its ongoing struggles.
With two rounds of the season remaining, Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner has disclosed that its drivers will be running opposite configurations of its 2023 charger.
However, Steiner has denied that the decision was made by the team in order to conduct comparison tests, with the choice boiling down to each driver’s preference.
“The main drive behind this was Nico feels that for him the old spec suits him better, and Kevin [Magnussen] is the opposite,” Steiner explained.
“We’ve opted to give them what they want, we have two races to go and nothing to lose, so we’ve tried to do what we can.
“We could discuss gathering data, but we’ve got enough data, it’s a decision based on what each driver likes more than anything else. It puts them in a comfortable position so that they’re as happy as they can be with the car they get.”
Kevin Magnussen (DEN) Haas VF-23 and Nico Hulkenberg (GER) Haas VF-23 battle for position. 04.11.2023. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 21, Brazilian Grand Prix, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sprint Day
Haas’ campaign has been stymied by excessive tyre degradation concerns that have seen it be unable to convert a plethora of promising qualifying results into points.
But with the inaugural race at the Las Vegas Circuit expected to yield the lowest track temperatures of the year, Steiner believes its tyre woes won’t be as bad as in Brazil.
“The low temperatures are a challenge, as everyone knows you need to keep the tyres higher than the minimum temperature, which is higher than five degrees, so we always need to keep them a bit warmer, but it depends also a lot on the asphalt,” he said.
“It’s a combination of temperature and roughness of asphalt, but I don’t think degradation can get much worse for us than in Brazil. On Thursday, during practice, we’ll get to know the surface, the track, the temperature and then we’ll know more.”
Meanwhile, Steiner is enthusiastic about the prospect of racing in the United States for the third time this season, outlining that each individual event is unique in its own right.
“I think it’s fantastic to have three races in the States, especially as the American team,” he added. “Five or 10 years ago, who’d have thought that we’d have more than one race in the US, now we’ve got three and they’re all very different events – as they would be if we were racing in different continents, not just country.
“I think it’s good for Formula 1 and the American fans who are coming more to watch and support. The standout point for me is the difference between each race. You go to Austin, which is a more ‘traditional’ race with lots of hardcore fans, and then you go to Miami where it’s party central, and then let’s see what Vegas brings.”
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