Haas will hit Formula 1’s budget limit in 2023, team boss Gunther Steiner has revealed.
The small American team, eighth overall this year, ended the season by announcing that Ferrari-backed Mick Schumacher will be replaced by Nico Hulkenberg in 2023.
That is in part possible thanks to the arrival of a title sponsor – Moneygram.
“Next year we will reach the budget cap and I am confident that we can take the next step, technically and as a team,” Steiner told motorsport-total.com.
“Because we can now do what other teams can do. And I don’t think it’s just us – everyone else will hit the budget cap next year,” he added.
However, Steiner explained that Haas was actually quite close to the budget cap limit in 2022.
“But I don’t think we performed like other teams,” he admitted. “Not because of money, but because of where we started.
Indeed, amid the covid crisis, the looming all-new 2022 rules and the establishment of a facility on the Ferrari factory grounds, Steiner explained that “in 2020 we shut everything down”.
“When we started it was January and you can’t have a team of people working together perfectly and in harmony from day one,” Steiner said.
“So it took a while, but at the beginning of the year we were still quite strong. Then something was missing.
“It was up and down, but Formula 1 is just a tough place. I think we discovered why things went the way they did.”
(GMM)
