Haas do not have a spare car to fall back on at this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix due to Mick Schumacher’s heavy crash at the previous race.
Schumacher shunted his VF-22 heavily during the qualifying session for the second round of the championship in Saudi Arabia. He did not take part in the race as the team said it did not want to risk further damage to one of its cars.Team principal Guenther Steiner confirmed today Haas will not have a back-up chassis if it suffers more heavy damage to a car this weekend.
“The situation with spare parts is as expected on race number two after a big crash,” he said. “We have got everything but we have no abundance of spare parts.”
The team had to freight Schumacher’s damaged car directly to Australia from Saudi Arabia before returning it to its base in Europe.
“We sent it back, at the beginning of the week, to Europe so we get it ready for Imola,” said Steiner. “We had to bring it here because of customs formalities, it had to be entered here and then it could be shipped back to Europe from here and it’s on it’s way back now.”
Despite the spares shortage, Steiner said he won’t instruct Schumacher or team mate Kevin Magnussen to alter their approach this weekend.
“I think you cannot approach it different,” he said. “The drivers are aware of the situation, there is no spare chassis, but that can happen sometimes that there is no spare chassis.
“I’m not panicking and if something happens we will deal with it as it comes along. You cannot say ‘go out there and drive slowly’, that doesn’t make sense as well, it’s just like don’t take extra risks if you don’t have to.”
Schumacher played down any concerns the lack of a spare may have on their weekend. “I think that everything’s going to be just fine,” he said. “We will be quick, hopefully, and we’ll for sure not need that spare one.”
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David
7th April 2022, 9:10
You get the sense that Haas are operating on a threadbare budget right now if one (admittedly big) crash can cause them to still be without spares 2 weeks later.
Emanuele (@allyita)
7th April 2022, 11:11
they started a new year with 3 chassis, to me it sounds reasonable.
consider that the last years they where using years old chassis with multiple repairs on them.
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
7th April 2022, 9:12
This would have been a great opportunity for Ferrari to just buy the team outright and spend some of the money on R&D with Haas rather than have it frozen because it exceeds the budget cap.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
7th April 2022, 10:02
That’s insanity and entirely at odds with F1s alleged attempts to “go green”.
slowmo (@slowmo)
7th April 2022, 10:36
Probably due to customs arrangements, to start the entire process of arranging the damaged chassis to go back to a different destination that originally planned would probably take longer than getting it to Australia and then going back to Europe. Sounds like typical customs bureaucracy that all countries and governments love.
Broke1984 (@broke1984)
7th April 2022, 11:01
Freighting an f1 car to Oz from S Arabia then back to Europe in just over a week. Very sustainable model right there, a very green image for F1
Sergey Martyn
7th April 2022, 11:19
Die hard pro K-Mag showed poor Mickey what this car is capable of.
As my lieutenant when I was serving has said – Any sophisticated machinery in the hands of inexperienced fella is just a piece of metal.
Illusive (@illusive)
7th April 2022, 13:02
We would have seen a thousand memes by now if it was Mazepin. Its good for Mick, now he will be really tested.
Jere (@jerejj)
7th April 2022, 13:05
Since Haas temporarily only has two monocoque copies for use, both drivers need to be slightly more careful than usual already in FPs, but equally QLF as they could risk another event with only one participating in the most crucial session.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
7th April 2022, 14:36
Haas is fine, now they have a car spare, close enough.
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
7th April 2022, 23:05
At least they don’t have to worry about Mazepin binning one anymore.