Haas boss Guenther Steiner targeting 5th in F1 standings ahead of new season

Guenther Steiner believes the gelling process among new staff at Haas will stand them in good stead for the 2023 season.

Haas recovered to eighth in the Constructors' Championship after a 2021 campaign which saw them with the slowest car in the field, to begin with, and two rookies behind the wheel in Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin.

The team also opted not to develop that car at all to focus all their efforts on Formula 1's regulation reset of 2022.

Schumacher and the returning Kevin Magnussen helped the team get back into the points. Dane Magnussen earned a shock pole position in Brazil late in 2022, and the team principal elaborated on the process they have taken to get to where they are now after a couple of years of toil.

Climbing back up

Such has been their rate of progress, in fact, that Steiner hopes to see Haas climb back to their 2018 peak of fifth place in the Constructors' standings in the next couple of seasons.

"I think we are in a better place," Steiner explained on the Beyond The Grid podcast.

"In 2018, we had a very good year. '19, our car was not up to what we wanted it to be. And then '20 came, we had quite a few backward hits, I would say, in a very short period of time.

"[In] '19, our car wasn't good. We tried to recover, then 2020 came. We got again, a slap in our face, because we didn't know if we [could] continue.

"And then we had to come up with '21 with having two rookie drivers. But now it's '22. We've made a big step. So I think in one or two years, our aim is to be where we left off in '18."

Haas has expanded their staff with a new base set up at Maranello, led by former Ferrari chief designer Simone Resta, who came on board as the team's technical director.

Budget benefits

Steiner admitted that Haas