“I’m so amazed about it” - Haas boss Guenther Steiner ecstatic after ‘best ever’ F1 pre-season testing

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has said that he's thrilled after the pre-season test in Bahrain.

The American team had a pretty solid pre-season testing in Bahrain, as they racked up a decent number of laps and were also reliable throughout the three days. Haas completed 415 laps, which was the fourth-most by any team during this year's pre-season testing.

Speaking to F1i.com, Steiner said that the test was Haas' 'best ever' in F1:

"Preparation wise yes, and running-wise. I think it’s the best one in Formula 1 ever. We’ve seen, how many red flags? Three? Everybody doing the laps. … If you go to the lap count of the previous season, the first test, this never happened before, in my opinion. I’m so amazed about it. Five years ago every two, or three hours there was a red flag. Now we’re all doing the laps, just boom, boom, boom."

He added:

“I think that going back to the best test we ever had – we had the best test because last year was our worst test because we were down so much. This year we went through our full programme, almost everything. We lost a few runs because of the throttle issue we had, but not a lot.

"The guys got a lot of information. This car is an evolution of last year so it’s not a completely new car. You can learn a lot quicker because you know what you will encounter, and mechanics take less time to do things, do set-up changes, because last year everything was new."

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"Haas definitely have taken a step" - Kevin Magnussen

Haas F1 driver Kevin Magnussen said that the team have taken a step forward from their 2022 car. The Dane, who scored the bulk of their points last season, said that he's happy with the new 2023 challenger.

Magnussen said:

"Haas definitely have taken a step. It’s a new era for the team that we’re stepping into, I would say. It’s exciting. We’re heading in the right direction. And it’s going to be exciting to see where we go. Everyone in the team can see that we’re in a good place and that we’re moving forward and getting closer to achieving the goals that we have for the team. And progress motivates everyone."

It would be interesting to see how Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen take the team forward in the 2023 season