Steiner: We only have one spare wing

Günther Steiner, Haas F1 Team Principal, commented on the departure of Niko Hulkenberg during the first practice session at the Dutch circuit and lamented that the VF-23’s new front wing had been damaged in the accident, leaving the team with only one spare nose cone . this configuration.

“It looks like the front fender is damaged and the problem is it’s new and we don’t have much of it,” Steiner told Sky Sports. Obviously it would have been better to avoid this. If something breaks, it’s not the front fender and it’s unclear if we can fix it. I think the chances of that are small.

We still have such a wing, but only one, so we will have to decide whether to risk it or not, put it on Niko’s car for the second practice or keep it until tomorrow. We will make a decision after the session, after consultation with Hulkenberg, but so far we don’t know how best to proceed. According to riders, the wing works very efficiently.

Of course, as always, we are concerned about the level of rubber degradation, but this weekend we are testing completely new rear brake ducts, and this should also lower the temperature of the rear tires. To what extent this will solve the problem of increased rubber degradation in long series of circles I don’t know yet. In training we don’t have the opportunity to do such long runs as on the race distance, so everything will only become clear on Sunday.