If the Haas Formula One team have their way, their drivers’ lap times will be within a half-second of those of Scuderia Ferrari’s drivers.
The Haas Formula One team have competed in Formula One for two seasons now, and they are set to enter their third season of competition this year with the same driver lineup as they had last year, which featured 31-year-old Romain Grosjean and 25-year-old Kevin Magnussen.
The team have not yet had much success in Formula One. In the 2016 season, their two drivers, who were Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez, combined for just four top 10 finishes in 42 races. Grosjean had the team’s top finish of the season, which was a 5th place result in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Grosjean and Gutierrez finished in 13th and 21st place, respectively, in the drivers standings, and Haas finished in 8th place in the constructors standings.
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In the 2017 season, Magnussen replaced Gutierrez. Grosjean and Magnussen combined for 13 top 10 finishes in 40 races. Grosjean had the team’s top finish of the season, which was a 6th place result in the Austrian Grand Prix. He and Magnussen finished in 13th and 14th place in the drivers standings, respectively, and Haas finished in 8th place in the constructors standings once again.
This season, the team have quite an interesting goal. Their goal is for their drivers to have lap times that are within 0.5 seconds of those of Scuderia Ferrari’s two drivers, who are four-time champion Sebastian Vettel and 2007 champion Kimi Raikkonen.
The Haas team are one of three Ferrari-powered teams in Formula One, with the other two being Scuderia Ferrari and Alfa Romeo Sauber.
Ferrari finished in 2nd place in the constructors standings last season, with Vettel finishing in 2nd place in the drivers standings with five victories and Raikkonen finishing in 4th despite the fact that he did not win a single race throughout the season.
Here is what Haas team owner Gene Haas had to say about the matter, according to Racer.com.
"“It looks like everyone is going to be better. We identified our weak spots and Guenther (Steiner, team principal) and I had a good heart-to-heart talk in Mexico City about what direction we were going to take and how we were going to improve.“It’s no secret we use a lot of Ferrari equipment, so we’re using them as our baseline. We need to be within a half-second of the Ferraris in order for us to be competitive. We weren’t last year. I would say we were a second to a second-and-a-half slower than the Ferraris.“Overall, we were maybe two seconds off the pole qualifiers, so we need to knock a second off that if we really want to be competitive.”"
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Will Haas achieve their goal to have their drivers lap times within 0.5 seconds of the lap times of Scuderia Ferrari’s drivers in the 2018 Formula One season? The Australian Grand Prix is set to kick off the 2018 season on Sunday, March 25th.