Haas is once again delaying the arrival of its latest season’s evolution

During the first Grand Prix of the season in Bahrain, Haas emerged as a pleasant surprise in terms of the new regulations. Kevin Magnussen scored ten points by finishing 5th, more than double what the team had achieved in 2020 and 2021 (three points in two years, all of which were earned in 2020). Mick Schumacher, on the other hand, finished 11th just outside the points, which boded well for the American team.

Seven races later, the balance is much less cheerful: five points during this period, half of what Magnussen scored in just one race in the opening in Sakhir. Worse still, the last entry into the top 10 dates back to Imola, five Grand Prix ago, and Mick Schumacher still has not scored a single point.

Facing this, even if the performance is far from being catastrophic like last year, some improvements would be welcome on the VF-22. While Günther Steiner initially stated that there would be no updates before the French Grand Prix, the introduction date for these new elements seems to have been pushed back even further. “I said France, but it may be Hungary because we took a step back as we wanted to verify something else in the wind tunnel,” Steiner states. “But now we are fully focused on producing for Hungary, that is our goal. Obviously, we are trying to do better, but I don’t know where we will stand.”

Steiner hopes that this new package will drastically improve the performance of the VF-22 and also states that these will be the last updates made to the car this year. Visually, it’s a big step, and in terms of performance, I hope it’s a big step. That’s what I’m hoping for. I don’t care much about how it looks, but you will see the difference. Then we will move on to next year’s car, there will be no further improvements.

The American team will therefore choose to focus on their 2023 car during the summer break. It will be necessary to monitor the preferences of the other teams.