Haas’ 2022 campaign was considerably better than the one the Americans endured in 2021, with the team having claimed several points throughout the season.
2021 was a disastrous year for Haas, as they sacrificed the entire season to fully focus on the new aerodynamic regulations.
It was a huge gamble by the side, but one which thankfully paid off, with Kevin Magnussen having finished fifth at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
Magnussen was only brought back into the team a matter of days before the start of the season, with Nikita Mazepin having been dropped as a result of the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe.
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The result was backed up by further points finishes in the second and fourth rounds of the season, before the team’s pace began to yo-yo.
Magnussen and Mick Schumacher were able to perform well at certain venues like Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring, but not others, with the team having suffered from a bizarre “big falloff”.
“I didn’t expect a fall after a few races,” team boss Guenther Steiner told Motorsport.com.
“I think in Australia, we had a s**t race. I didn’t expect that big falloff after the first two races, but it happened. And then you think, now we need to come back. It took us a little bit of time.
“Then we had again Silverstone and Austria, which was very good. That’s why I say, [it was] very difficult to predict.”
The team only introduced one big upgrade in 2022; however, their pace actually worsened after the upgrade was fitted, something which came as a “mystery” to Steiner.
Haas did end up claiming eighth in the Constructors’ Championship, thanks to a stellar performance from Magnussen at the Circuit of the Americas and Interlagos.
“Where I think it’s a bit of a mystery is we didn’t have an upgrade in Austria and Silverstone, and we were very fast,” said Steiner.
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“Then we put the upgrade on, and we were not fast again. And then all of a sudden, we were fast again. These are the things which are a little bit mysterious.
“I wouldn’t say we know 100% what it is. It’s a combination of things.
“I think once we launched the car, we had a bit of difficulty to find more performance straightaway, or the performance finds were too small to make changes to the car.”