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Haas Passes F.I.A. Crash Tests

[Photo by Cliff Mason of Getty Images]

[Photo by Cliff Mason of Getty Images]

America’s Formula One team, Haas F1, took another step closer to presenting their new 2017 challenger Saturday by passing the required F.I.A. crash tests.

This follows an amazing early part of their rookie 2016 season, which ended with very few points but an eighth-place finish in the constructor’s championship.

This upcoming season will have many regulation changes including wider tires, both front and rear, and a wider chassis, which is 20 centimeters longer than the previous model. But team manager Guenther Steiner believes that this is the first part of a process that hopefully will get more points for the team with returning Frenchman Romain Grosjean and his new teammate, Dane Kevin Magnussen.

“We did our chassis crash test this week and we passed that one, so we are pretty on schedule,” Steiner told ESPN F1. “That’s always a pretty good marker, a big goalpost, if you make that the rest should fall into place. Every year it is the same for everybody — you’re always last minute but you figure out how to get over that one.”

Winter testing will be at the end of February and into the mid part of March before the opening race in Australia at the end of that month. But this not seem to bother Steiner, who still has time to make other arrangements before their team’s launch.

“Yes, the season starts a bit later but that doesn’t do anything for building a car because you release the car later as well.” Steiner added. “But we learned a lot last year [about the process]. You learn every day.”

Haas is looking forward to the same program that they did in their opening season, which was to have a filming day at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, before launching their car at perhaps the same time frame that the opening tests are taking place. However, the confirmation of these plans is still not confirmed.

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