How F1's curse-beater is proving its doubters wrong

In 2017 Haas overcame the long-held belief that a new Formula 1 team's second season is tougher than the first by scoring significantly more points, even if its position of eighth in the constructors' table did not change.

The second-year theory is based on the obvious notion that a new team has plenty of time to focus on its debut and get its first car ready, but then has to design and develop the second car while in the middle of a frantic racing season. In 2017 Haas had the added challenge of dealing with the massive rules changes.

Having beaten the odds last year there's no reason to suspect that Haas will do anything wrong in 2018. But it's clear that several of the teams with which it has been competing will be raising their game. The likes of McLaren, Renault and Sauber (with a contemporary engine) all have momentum and reasons to make forward progress, and while there are question marks over the form and reliability of the Honda package, works support will be a huge boost for Toro Rosso.

There are no changes to the recipe at Haas in 2018, and so no obvious reasons why there will be an upshift in form of the sort that McLaren should enjoy. While continuity has its benefits, and the team now has more experience, it could be argued that just holding on to eighth place - let's assume by beating Sauber and Toro Rosso - would be an achievement. Many observers remain sceptical about the ultimate potential for a team that buys so much technology from outside, even if that strategy allows it to focus on a key area of competitive advantage, namely aerodynamics.

And team principal Guenther Steiner agrees that life won't be getting any easier.

"There will be a season where the next one will be worse than the one we did before," he says. "So I need to be careful what I say, because we won't always go just upwards. I think it was tough, but I think we are performing pretty well. I didn't expect the midfield battle to be this intense, but then again depending where you are, it can be a good thing or a bad thing."

Steiner says he knew all about the second year 'curse' - both from being endlessly warned about it, and from his own experience in rallying.

"It's not a cliche, it's true that normally the second year is difficult. But therefore we started pretty early to develop for the second year, and in the second half of the [2016] season we didn't score a lot of points. People didn't suggest it, they told me it would be a bad year. We know it, we try to avoid it.

"I did that mistake before, and you try to learn out of your mistakes. At the Ford WRC team with the Focus, the second year was a tough year. We just ran the first year, rally to rally, to get better, and forgot about the next year. We needed a complete new car - [got to the end of the season and thought] now what are we doing?

"[2017] was a massive challenge, but all the people did a good job in our team and therefore we are where we are now. Everybody predicted before we came that we would be last, everybody predicted that the second year will be a nightmare because everybody's second year is a nightmare. It wasn't.

"I don't want to sound arrogant and say we are clever, because there are a lot of clever people in F1. As I said before there will be a year where we cannot avoid it, and go backwards, because something doesn't go how you want it to go. I think it's challenging to do anything, new regulations or old regulations, in F1. You know how difficult it is just to keep current, not to fall back."

From five top-10 finishes and 29 points in its debut season, Haas scored 47 last year, while its 13 top-10s including doubles for Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen in Monaco and Japan.

But form was not consistent, and there were races where the cars were far from the points.

"For a second year in F1, if you go back to the history books, it's not bad," says Steiner. "We were still inconsistent, but more consistent than 2016. But the inconsistency is not only us. That doesn't make it right, but it's in the sport at the moment. It's not just Haas which doesn't get it right. Look at Williams - they are on the podium, and then they are last. It is very up and down."

Spa was just one example where the team found a good set-up by race day, but Grosjean complained that it was too late and the weekend had been compromised. The team's lack of experience as a unit meant it found it harder than others to arrive at a circuit with an ideal set-up, and then work on the details. The seemingly endless brake dramas, and swapping between suppliers, didn't help.

"In the race we normally end up to be not too bad, but where we normally struggle is Fridays and Saturdays," explains Steiner. "We make it far too hard for ourselves, in my opinion. We always somehow struggle back to where we want to be, but it is tough, Fridays are tough. That has a lot to do with tyre management, and we just find out over the weekend how we do best, how to get it halfway to work.

It's up to the team to prove it can continue to make progress. Steiner remains confident the strategy of buying a big chunk of the Ferrari package, and sourcing so much from Dallara, is working

"And now we're getting closer. The experience is lacking a little bit - that 20 years' experience. We've got people who have 20 years' experience, but not as a team, as a combination. We're working on it, to bring more people, to work more in detail with tyre management and stuff like this."

In 2017 the team also had its fair share of bad luck, losing out in qualifying on several occasions due to red flags robbing the drivers at a critical time. Then there was Romain Grosjean's expensive incident at Sepang, which could have happened to anybody: he spun at 170mph and had a 17G impact with the barriers in Friday practice after his right rear tyre was destroyed when he ran over a drain cover that had been dislodged by Valtteri Bottas's Mercedes at Turn 13.

"If there is bad luck out there, we normally pick it up," says Steiner. "Anybody else could have run over it [in Malaysia], but it was us. Maybe we are a small factor in picking up all the bad luck as well. I wouldn't call us the luckiest team out there in any way. But it will turn.

"You cannot do anything about it anyway, you say it, you mention it, but don't try to use it as an excuse, that's always my principle. When you get lucky you should not say, 'I got lucky therefore I am successful'. Nobody does that. 'I'm successful because I'm good,' that's what you always say."

The team has clear areas to improve. But what of the drivers? Magnussen didn't endear himself to some of his rivals last year with his aggressive approach, but he certainly won the team over with his commitment.

"I think what Kevin brought is a little bit more experience, and he's scored points," says Steiner. "In the end that was our biggest thing last year to develop, how can we score points with two cars? And we did it. What we asked for, we got.

"He delivered what we expected from him, absolutely. We all have got room for improvement, every one of us, but there is nothing in particular where I would say I thought he was better at this or that. He wants to be in F1 for a long time, and he puts a lot of effort into it, and he's got the talent. We just need to get everything right, and he will be very successful."

Grosjean, meanwhile, generated more attention for his frantic radio messages that were often critical of the car than for his performance on track. Steiner wasn't too worried about that public narrative.

"It's less than you would think, because if you know him, it's his character," continues Steiner. "In the garage afterwards he's maybe mad for another five or 10 minutes, and then he's OK. As long as he doesn't have a go at anybody personally, I'm good with it. I think he has got a lot better.

"People say we just pick up snippets of what he says. No. You get them all, because the TV is on it! When he has a run, it will be on TV. I think he improved a lot, and he realised that the guys try to do their best anyway, nobody's working hard to be stupid. He's pretty good at getting them back [on side], he's OK."

It's now up to the team to prove that it can continue to make progress. Steiner remains confident that the strategy of buying a big chunk of the Ferrari package, and sourcing so much from Dallara, is working. Certainly, reliability was improved last year compared to the first season, although those ongoing brake issues showed that there was still much to learn.

"We basically tried to better our processes," says Steiner. "The more people you get, the more people you need to keep informed, the more people are interested in it, and [you have to] not create any divisions. There is stuff we work on. There is room for improvement, but in general it is working well."

Gene Haas pays a significant sum to Ferrari, and there were occasional signs last year that his F1 adventure is costing him rather more than he originally envisaged. He was certainly pleased to see talk about controls on spending from the championship's new management.

Steiner insists that the team's approach is a wise one. Doing your own suspension and other systems means more people, and thus more expense, and using Maranello technology allowed the team to hit the ground running. The difficult bit will be making that next step - and doing better than eighth.

"F1 is not cheap, but to talk about what is cheap and what is expensive is difficult," he muses. "If you do it on your own it will be more expensive, starting from nothing, because you will make so many mistakes. You need to put so much investment into the infrastructure that it would never pay off.

"Red Bull always complains about engines. Why are they not making their own engine? Because it's not easy."