F1: Haas' fast start a good 2017 target - Steiner

Above: Haas team principal Guenther Steiner and team members celebrate Romain Grosjean's fifth-place finish in Bahrain.

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner wants his team to try and replicate its fast start to life in F1 at the beginning of its second season in the sport.

Despite a troublesome pre-season testing period, Haas was the surprise package in the opening two races in 2016 as Romain Grosjean finished sixth in Australia and then fifth at the next round in Bahrain. While the team had a lot on its plate while preparing for its debut season, Steiner says the early results are a good target for Haas to aim for once again.

"Yeah, absolutely," Haas told RACER when asked if the start to 2016 is vindication of the team's approach. "We will try to do what we did last year but better and hopefully we can have the same if not a better result. To be honest it will be very difficult – I'm aware of that – but if you don't try then you don't get."

The Haas model sees the team make use of a close technical partnership with Ferrari while also appointing Dallara to build its chassis. Although pre-season was especially difficult – suffering a number of reliability issues including front wing failures – Steiner says there has been little change in either relationship.

"No, it's very similar to last year, very similar. I would go back to last year and point out that what we did for the first time actually worked very well. Everybody did what they said what they were going to do. We are just making little adjustments; we want to make our lives easier and better but we are just replicating some things we did last year. I hope it gets smoother and more efficient than last year because we have got a year under our belt with our partners."

And Steiner says Haas is on course with production of its new car at this stage, having passed the majority of its mandatory crash tests over the past seven days.

"We've passed the chassis crash tests within the last week, that is all done. There's still some like the nose one to do. If you don't pass that one it's much easier to recoup than if you fail a chassis test."