Guenther Steiner takes no notice at all of those who dismiss Haas as nothing more than a Ferrari 'B-team'.
Current FIA rules limit the number of parts teams can buy from another competitor. As well as having their power units supplied by Ferrari, Haas have also made sure to push that rule to the limit by purchasing other car parts from the Scuderia.
While that policy has been somewhat enforced by Haas' tiny budget compared to their competitors, it has annoyed other teams on the grid. Less was said about it when Haas were struggling in last place, but after some improvements last year the sniping started again.
Steiner, in his usual unflappable way, says he couldn't care less what other have to say about his team. He told Motorsport-Total : "We have got used to it. If you're good, you're a copycat. If you're bad, nobody cares.
"It's like, 'alright, keep saying it, we've heard it before'. It's a broken record. It doesn't bother me. I don't care at all." While Haas have benefitted from that Ferrari relationship, their efforts last season were hampered by reliability issues from those power units.
But Steiner appears confident those woes are now over. "It should be okay now with the new power units that are coming in, and hopefully for next year it is resolved because we had quite a few issues this year, with a few crashes and then power unit problems, they have not helped us," he told Mirror Sport at the end of October.
"I wouldn't say that we got lucky! It is a strong unit, we didn't have the problem like we did [in 2021], that we were underpowered. We have the power now – now it's just getting the reliability down and I'm confident that can be done for next year."
And he made it clear that the problems Haas suffered from those power units will not affect the relationship his team has with Ferrari, adding: "It's frustrating and I get really upset about it. It is not completely out of our hands because we can go somewhere else, but that is maybe a worse decision for us. There are always pros and cons to everything.
"The only thing we could do is go to somebody else, but that is difficult as well because the neighbour's grass is always greener, until you get there. We have an agreement and Ferrari was always good with us. We work well together, so at the moment we don't want to change."
