American squad joining F1 grid next year
Wednesday 23 December 2015 09:11, UK
Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has told Sky Sports the squad's preparations are on schedule ahead of their on-track debut at February's first pre-season test in Barcelona.
The American team will be a new addition to the grid, fielding two Ferrari-powered cars driven by Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez.
At the team's European base in Banbury, preparations are at an advanced stage with the race bays ready for the cars and race equipment ready to ship to not just the first race of the season, but the first six.
"We are only 10 weeks away from testing, but all the work is going to plan so we are pretty happy," Steiner told Sky Sports.
"Everything seems to come together. Our pit equipment is almost all here now and we've done a garage check so when we set up in Barcelona we will be right. Obviously, the car is the last thing you bring in and the production planning is going well and we will start to produce a car in mid-January.
"We will do the crash test at the beginning of January and then start to put one together to get ready for February 22 in Barcelona."
In recent years, some teams have run an old car or skipped the opening test altogether due to time constraints, but Steiner is confident Haas will be running.
"As confident as you can be. There are always unknown [issues], but very confident we will be there," he said. "Everything has been signed off, the Barcelona car has been signed off, everything is in production now."
One thing Haas won't have time to do, though, is have a separate launch event for their first F1 car ahead of the first test.
"[We'll launch] in Barcelona. We have no spare time to do anything before so we will roll it out hopefully the day before the testing starts on the Sunday," the team principal said.
And perhaps that is good thing given the car's colour scheme is yet to be decided.
"I would be happy to know! Mr Haas has not decided yet and I think it is a very personal decision," Steiner revealed. "Nobody believes it, but I actually don't know."
