Before the race in Baku, Haas team boss Günther Steiner warned his two drivers of further accidents. Because the next race takes place a week later on the other side of the globe in Canada, time could be a bit tight if something happens.
After the past few weeks, the American racing team has been somewhat shaken in terms of parts anyway. Most recently in Monaco, Mick Schumacher disassembled his VF-22 in such a way that the car broke in two. Lucky for the team: The chassis could be repaired and is not damaged beyond repair.
“Fortunately, the chassis wasn’t broken,” confirms Steiner on “ServusTV” and explains why the bolide could break apart again in the event of a supposedly harmless impact (at least compared to Romain Grosjean in Bahrain 2020). “It’s not planned. It was just how he hit it,” said the South Tyrolean.
“That’s just the weakest point, where the gearbox is bolted to the engine,” he says. “The engine used to break out of the chassis, and now I think that’s just the weakest point when you hit it like that – those four or six screws that attach the transmission to the engine.”
Haas “very thin with spares”
But even if the chassis could be saved by Schumacher, some parts had to be changed again. And that gets Haas in quite a bit of trouble. “Our biggest problem at the moment is keeping up with the production of the parts,” says Steiner. Too many had to be replaced in the past races.
“That’s why we’re just very thin with spare parts,” he says. At least some parts should arrive in Baku on Saturday, so that the racing team still has something should something happen – and that’s not impossible in Baku.
Haas also has a third chassis in its luggage for emergencies. But you had to take it to Azerbaijan with you in a hurry, still unpainted. “We just didn’t have time to paint to have it with us in time if we needed it,” says Steiner.
Of course he hopes that the replacement chassis will not have to be used. “But if you do, you can mask it with white foil. That’s fine.”