Haas boss Guenther Steiner has issued a response to claims his team have copied the Ferrari car. The American team have enjoyed a dream start to the 2022 campaign and have already amassed 12 points this season, a massive improvement after failing to score any points last year.
Now their rivals have appeared to throw a spanner in the works, as rivals have called on the F1 officials to investigate the legality of the Haas VF-22. Accusers claim that it shares too many similarities with Ferrari’s F1-75 car, but Steiner has leapt to his team’s defence.
“There are sometimes things in the rules that if they don’t work for you, you cannot go and change it,” he said. “Mercedes was winning the world championship eight years in a row, they had a very strong engine, and good for them, they did a good job.
“But nobody said: 'Oh, we now need to change the engine rule, because Mercedes is winning everything.' There is governance in place. And if certain people think they can change everything by just speaking, I don’t think that is going to happen.”
Ferrari already supplies Haas with engines and gearboxes and in the past they have admitted to buying parts from their illustrious colleagues to help cut costs. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff shared his assessment on Haas' transformation from last season to their current state.
“Haas took a huge leap forward from last place. It’s an interesting step,” said the Austrian. “It’s a learning curve for us because as an organisation of 2,000 people that has been successful in the past, we’re now struggling with teams that are much smaller. They must have done a great job.
"I think it [the rules] needs reform, because none of the teams should be able to cooperate in a way that we’re seeing today," Wolff added. "Everybody deserves to perform well, and people should get credit when they’ve done a good job.
"But some of the job-hopping or entity-hopping on the same premises is just creating arguments that are not necessary for the sport." Meanwhile, Ferrari have set the pace early in this campaign with 104 points at the top of the constructors' standings, 39 points ahead of second-placed Mercedes.
Charles Leclerc has won two of the first three races and leads the drivers championship with 71 points, 34 more than George Russell in second. The Monaco native will hope to extend his tally with another strong showing at the Imola GP this weekend.
