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More power to Haas for doing things differently upon their entry to Formula One in 2016.
On course to finish eighth in the constructors' championship with 29 points, the team have proved their unique approach to motor racing can succeed—purchasing as many parts as possible from Ferrari and fitting them to a chassis designed by Dallara.
Sure, teething troubles have developed and their competitiveness has inevitably waned as their debut season has progressed, but the newcomers have generally achieved their aim of looking like seasoned professionals.
And what's more, Haas appear to have taken the sport to a wider audience and, in their own way, helped tackle two of the most feared words in the F1 dictionary: "fan" and "engagement."
Ahead of August's Belgian Grand Prix, the team launched an initiative encouraging their Twitter followers to send messages of support, several of which would be plastered to the walls of their garage on a race weekend.
Despite F1's failure to fully embrace cyberspace over the years, teams being creative with their use of social media was nothing new—the Lotus team competed with a variety of hashtags on their car throughout 2013—yet this was slightly different, forming a direct link between Haas and their supporters.
It meant the last thing the drivers saw before they disappeared beneath their armour, climbed into their cockpits and started their engines was a collection of inspiring words, creating an atmosphere akin to the players' tunnel of a football stadium.
Such has been the sheer volume of responses that the decorations have changed on a weekly basis, with messages tailored for each individual race.
But if one note were to become a permanent fixture within the garage, it would be the mantra recycled by almost every competitor across the pit lane: "Just remember: We win and lose as a team."
As impressive as Haas have been in 2016, the team's debut season has risked being defined by the complaints of Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez, who—in true racing-driver spirit—have always wanted more.
In a team who clearly consider themselves lucky to have him, Grosjean's unflattering, emotional comments over pit-to-car radio have been a relatively small price to pay for a driver who will deliver more often than not—he has 100 grand prix starts and 10 podium finishes to his name, after all.
Yet the frequent, scathing and often public criticisms made by a driver of the stature of Gutierrez, who has failed to score a single point this season, have been much harder to stomach.
Fortunate to earn a second chance in F1 after two anonymous seasons with Sauber in 2013 and '14, this should have been a year for Gutierrez to operate under the radar and finally develop into the driver so many—including esteemed driver coach Rob Wilson—felt he could become.
While his team-mate eased to top-six finishes in the opening two races in Australia and Bahrain, Gutierrez was handicapped by several reliability problems and prevented from converting the VF-16's pace into points at a stage of the season when the car performed at its best.
And he refused to let them ever forget it.
As early as May's Spanish GP, Gutierrez accused the team of making him "look very bad to the outside," per Autosport (h/t Eurosport), suggesting the sheer amount of car problems—an expected hurdle for a new team, you'd assume—were overshadowing the "f--king great job" he was doing internally.
Although his performances improved from that weekend, a first point of 2016 continued to elude him.
And after a third 11th-place finish in five races in July's Austrian GP—where he was pipped to the final point by Pascal Wehrlein, behind the wheel of the slowest car on the grid—he took it upon himself to chair a "very strong meeting," per ESPN F1's Nate Saunders.
The Spielberg summit, attended by team principal Guenther Steiner, was intended to bang Haas' heads together and encourage them "to work as a team," but it only served to pull them further apart.
During the summer break—around the time he irritated his fellow drivers by blocking Lewis Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo and Wehrlein on track—Gutierrez issued an apology to the team, admitting to Autosport (h/t Eurosport) that he "was a bit too much on certain occasions."
His statement felt like the words of a driver desperately attempting to backtrack, knowing he'd gone too far, yet the damage had already been done.
When he missed his best chance of scoring a point in Italy, where a lacklustre start dropped him from 10th to the rear of the field on the opening lap, Steiner made no attempt to defend him, suggesting Gutierrez simply cracked under pressure, per Autosport (h/t Eurosport).
At a time Haas' original deadline for their 2017 driver lineup came and went, Steiner's decision to hang his driver out to dry was a sure sign that Gutierrez was fighting for his future, but the 25-year-old made no real attempt to save his skin.
Ahead of his home race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, the Mexican arrogantly declared he was seriously considering alternative options for next season in an FIA press conference, almost oblivious to the fact that two could play at that game.
As reported by Motorsport.com's Adam Cooper, it emerged later that weekend that Haas had offered his seat to Kevin Magnussen, whose signing from Renault was confirmed after Friday practice at the Brazilian GP.
And with Jolyon Palmer partnering Nico Hulkenberg at Renault for 2017, and with Esteban Ocon promoted to Force India alongside Sergio Perez, the options Gutierrez may have been considering in Mexico have suddenly disappeared into thin air.
In a season when they have been dismissed as a Ferrari B team, the decision to replace Gutierrez is a politically significant move by Haas—proof that they will not settle for any driver offered to them by their technical partner, an indication of their desire to become a serious F1 operation in their own right.
Having been so confident of securing a reasonably competitive drive for 2017, Gutierrez has been left to join the scramble for seats at the two most unattractive teams on the grid.
But consider this: Why would he return to Sauber, whom he was more than happy to leave for a Ferrari reserve role at the end of 2014 and who, with year-old engines, are likely to be nailed to the back of the grid next year?
And given his frustration with Haas in 2016, why would he take a chance on a Manor team who have registered just two points finishes in almost seven full seasons and who, under the management of uncompromising racing director Dave Ryan, will not tolerate his petulance?
Although his personal sponsorship may yet keep his career alive, Gutierrez appears to have talked his way out of F1 having failed to appreciate what he had in 2016, failed to endear himself to his employers and failed to understand the value of winning and losing as a team.
If this is the end, he will not be missed.
Formula One is too predictable these days, right? That has been a common complaint over the last two-plus seasons of Mercedes domination.
And that may be true at the top of the grid, which looks pretty much as expected so far in 2016: Mercedes are out in front, and Ferrari (when their cars are running) are a bit behind but clearly second-best.
If you look at the constructors' standings following Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix, though, there are a couple surprises just below those top teams. Red Bull, expected to struggle with their TAG Heuer-badged Renault engines, are third and debutants Haas, the first brand-new team in six years, are fifth.
Given Red Bull's championship pedigree, Haas' performance is probably the bigger surprise.
Three new teams entered the sport in 2010 (only one, Manor, is left) and have combined for exactly one top-10 finish in the 117 grands prix since then. Romain Grosjean, in contrast, finished sixth for Haas on their debut at the Australian Grand Prix.
"This is a win for us!" he shouted over the team radio as the race ended. "This is a win!"
On Sunday in Bahrain, it would get even better. Grosjean parlayed a terrific start—where he jumped from ninth (or eighth, following Sebastian Vettel's parade lap breakdown) to sixth after the first corner—flawless strategy and some beautiful overtaking manoeuvres into a fifth-place finish.
"We've had two unbelievable races, but we have to keep our feet on earth," he said during a televised interview with Sky Sports after the chequered flag. "There is some more work we can do, but this is crazy."
Being an American team (more or less), there was plenty of hype surrounding Haas coming into the season. At the same time, expectations were tempered given the struggles of the last new teams to enter the sport.
But Haas arrived with a new approach: a close partnership with Ferrari that included purchasing as many parts as legally allowed from the Italian team. And "legal" is the key word there. Despite criticism from some corners of the paddock, Haas are just following the rules.
"The status of being a constructor has been gradually eroded," Williams technical director Pat Symonds recently told Autosport's Lawrence Barretto.
That is a valid concern, as Haas are skirting the line of constructor versus customer team, but also perhaps a bit of sour grapes.
Despite the assistance from Ferrari, owner Gene Haas attempted to downplay expectations for his new team during pre-season testing. "If we got it in the top 10 once or twice that would be a realistic expectation," he told Jerome Pugmire of the Associated Press. "Most of the time we're going to be in that 10th or 15th position."
Many observers, it seemed, agreed with that assessment. F1i.com's Chris Medland, for example, wrote, "The midfield may be a stretch early on as it needs to learn quickly, but with a strong driver pairing at least a point this year must be the target."
Now, though, expectations have surely changed. Yes, Grosjean benefitted from Kimi Raikkonen's retirement and the red flag in Australia. In Bahrain, he was helped by Vettel's blown engine, as well as Lewis Hamilton's first-corner misfortune.
But Haas' achievements cannot be diminished by what other teams and drivers do or don't do. The first two races have shown they are a legitimate midfield team. With a bit of rain or some bold strategy calls, perhaps Grosjean could even repeat the miraculous podium he scored for Lotus at Spa last year.
The other big surprise so far this season are Red Bull. In particular, Daniel Ricciardo has somehow managed two straight fourth-place finishes in a car that was reckoned to be maybe fifth- or sixth-best at the start of the year.
Ricciardo's excitement at qualifying fifth in Bahrain tells you everything you need to know about the team's relatively low expectations for 2016.
"I'm really happy with the result today," he said, per a team press release. "We came into qualifying thinking if all went well, maybe we would squeeze into Q3, and so to get into fifth is great."
For a team that won four drivers' and four constructors' titles from 2010 to 2013, it must seem weird to be "really happy" qualifying fifth. That is what Red Bull have been reduced to, though, as their engine supplier, Ren—sorry, TAG Heuer, have struggled since the introduction of the hybrid V6 power units in 2014.
In Bahrain, both Ricciardo and his team-mate, Daniil Kvyat, suffered damage to their front wings in separate incidents. Still, both cars looked competitive, and Kvyat finished seventh after a disappointing qualifying that saw him line up 15th on the starting grid.
Ricciardo passed Felipe Massa's Mercedes-powered Williams on the long start-finish straight early in the race. He was on softer tyres at the time, but the Renault power deficit does look smaller this year.
So, what is possible for Red Bull this year?
"It's going to be a season of evolution for us," said team principal Christian Horner in February, per JamesAllenOnF1.com's Alex Kalinauckas. "I think that it's probably going to be a season of two halves, the first half is going to be less competitive than the second but we're expecting to make significant progress during the year."
Red Bull don't have the pace to challenge Mercedes, or even Ferrari, and it's unlikely there will be a race where all four of those cars don't finish, so wins are probably still off the table. On the other hand, if this is the "less competitive" version of Red Bull, multiple podiums are definitely possible (Ricciardo and Kvyat combined for three in 2015).
If the racing at the front is too predictable for you (although, who had Nico Rosberg to win the first two races?), just look a bit further back and you'll find a few surprises. The midfield looks closer and more competitive than it has been in many years.
In Bahrain, the midfield battles were entertaining enough to almost make you forget about Rosberg running away with the race at the front. Almost.
Follow me on Twitter for updates when I publish new articles and for other (mostly) F1-related news and banter: @MatthewWaltert.
The Haas F1 team have released images of their first car, the VF-16, for the 2016 Formula One season.
The team officially launched their new design on Sunday via their official Twitter feed:
Haas F1, who will be using Ferrari engines, have confirmed Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez as their drivers for their debut season in the sport. The team’s founder and co-owner is Gene Haas, who previously set up the Haas CNC Racing NASCAR group.
They’ll also be the first American team to compete in Formula One since 1986, according to their Twitter feed.
Grosjean, who has been on the podium 10 times in his Formula One career, certainly seems keen to get going in the wake of the announcement, posting the following on Twitter:
Encouragingly for the debutants, Haas has told Jonathan Noble of motorsport.com that the VF-16 has already completed an installation lap ahead of Monday’s pre-season testing getting underway in Barcelona.
"We are good," he said. "The car went out and did a shakedown lap, and it is okay. It has been a long time [preparing]—it has been so long. But we are ready and now we need to get it done."
After the Manor Marussia team collapsed, Haas F1 bought out their base in Banbury; they also have headquarters in Kannapolis.
Matt Beer of autosport.com noted that Haas has put together an experienced engineering team for their maiden Formula One term, including former Red Bull man Gunther Steiner as the team principal. Beer also wrote that the relationship with Ferrari, which will allow the debutants to run “non-listed parts” from teams under the same umbrella, has been vital to Haas F1.
The founder has revealed some more detail about the VF-16, including where the name came from, per F1 Racing on NBC:
It’s always fascinating when a brand new team is in the garage and given the pedigree of Haas from other ventures, that excitement has been ramped up ahead of 2016. Indeed, it’s the first time in six years viewers have had a total debutant to keep an eye on; Lotus, Virgin and Hispania were the last newcomers on the grid in 2010.
Formula One's newest team, Haas, will launch their first-ever car on February 22 at the Circuit de Catalunya ahead of the start of winter testing.
The pit-lane unveiling will be a low-key affair, but the team have been anything but quiet in the run-up to their debut.
New teams rarely start off with top-level drivers, but Haas grabbed the attention of the F1 world with their capture of Romain Grosjean from Lotus. The highly rated Frenchman will be joined by Ferrari-backed Esteban Gutierrez in one of the few all-new lineups on the 2016 grid.
Haas have taken an unusual route to F1, opting to contract out much of the design work on their chassis to Italian company Dallara. The team will also work very closely with Ferrari, buying in as many parts from the Scuderia as the regulations permit.
They will be hoping this approach, along with the blend of proven ability and potential in their driver lineup, will give them at least half a chance of achieving their target of points on their debut.
But the aims of Grosjean and Gutierrez will extend beyond the walls of the Haas garage, because a far greater prize than an occasional top-10 finish could be up for grabs at the end of the year.
Grosjean's performances between 2013 and 2015 transformed his career; prior to that time, he didn't appear to be going anywhere fast.
The Frenchman's first foray into F1—as a mid-season replacement for Nelson Piquet Jr. at Renault in 2009—was something of a disaster, with Grosjean failing to score a point and gaining a reputation for being accident prone.
He was dropped at the end of the year but, after two seasons of racing in sports cars, Auto GP and GP2—winning titles in both Auto GP and GP2—he was hired by Lotus to partner Kimi Raikkonen in 2012.
It was a rare second chance, and initially it appeared that he was going to blow it.
His tendency to get involved in accidents had not gone away and, following a particularly spectacular crash at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix, he became the first driver to be banned from a race since Michael Schumacher in 1994.
Despite scoring three podiums, Grosjean's inconsistency and frequent poor judgement meant he scored just 96 points to Raikkonen's 203. His F1 career could have been over at the end of the season—and he probably wouldn't have been missed.
However, Lotus kept faith in their man and the Frenchman, recognising that he needed to change his approach, worked with a psychologist to get on top of his issues. He later revealed to Autosport's Lawrence Baretto:
I wanted to see my psychologist, I needed some help. I didn't understand what was going on.
If you work in the right way you realise, you understand and you put it in action and then you see that it was better and then you take the next step and then you get more and more.
It's like having a tool box containing only a screwdriver and you add another tool. When a situation comes there's always a tool in front of you and you can take the right one, whereas before you only had one and then you screw up.
The Grosjean of 2013 was a far more formidable competitor; though outclassed by Raikkonen in the early races, by the end of the season he was on a par with and often ahead of the Finn—and he's been getting better ever since.
Lotus were uncompetitive in 2014, but Grosjean still impressed, and in 2015 he continued his good form. A podium at Spa—scene of the crash that spurred him to properly harness his talent—was the highlight of a season in which he made team-mate Pastor Maldonado look very ordinary indeed.
The 29-year-old could have stayed at Enstone for 2016, and the prospect of driving for a works Renault team held a lot of appeal. But the French manufacturer dragged its heels completing the takeover of Lotus, and Grosjean—with one eye on a future seat at Ferrari—accepted an offer from the new Haas team.
Gutierrez, like Grosjean, has been given a second chance to make his mark in F1.
The Mexican had a fairly good junior career, including titles in Formula BMW Europe in 2008 and GP3 in 2010. After two seasons in GP2—where he was third in the 2012 season—he made his debut for Sauber at the 2013 Australian Grand Prix.
His record counted for something, but, per BBC Sport's Andrew Benson, the main reason he got the seat was the financial backing he brought from his homeland. That he failed to impress was unsurprising, but few expected he would be quite as poor as he appeared to be.
More-experienced team-mate Nico Hulkenberg outqualified Gutierrez 18 times from 19 races, finished ahead 12 times to the Mexican's three and scored an impressive 51 points from a string of top-10 finishes. Driving the same car, Gutierrez only managed six points—all scored at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Gutierrez retained his seat for the following season, and though Sauber scored no points at all, he did at least fare better against new team-mate Adrian Sutil. The pair were evenly matched in qualifying and the races, but the team opted to replace both at the end of the season.
It looked like Gutierrez would become just the latest in a string of drivers whose F1 careers ended in their mid-20s. There were no race seats available even for a driver with financial support, and his record over the previous two seasons did little to inspire confidence in his abilities.
However, Ferrari clearly saw something in him that many others did not, and in mid-December 2014, Gutierrez was announced as their test and reserve driver for the following year.
One day later, a second tweet was issued by the team—and a cynical personality wasn't needed to imagine there might be more to the deal than talent alone.
But while even Ferrari wouldn't say no to a bit of extra cash from a wealthy sponsor, they would never sign a driver for purely commercial reasons. Gutierrez was, after all, the inaugural GP3 champion, and he hadn't looked out of his depth in 2014.
Perhaps with the right nurturing and in a supportive environment, he would grow into a useful contender.
Gutierrez spent 2015 working with Ferrari and appears to have made the right impression. It had long been expected that the new Haas team's close partnership with the Scuderia would lead to them taking a Ferrari-linked driver, and in October it was confirmed Gutierrez would be joining Grosjean in 2016.
To a degree, the dynamic between the two Haas drivers will be similar to that between Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr. at Toro Rosso. Both Grosjean and Gutierrez will enter 2016 looking to prove they are worthy of promotion to a larger team—in this case, Ferrari.
Grosjean has been professional about his switch to the American outfit, playing down talk of him using the drive as a springboard to Maranello.
However, he hasn't denied an interest in one day driving for the Italian team—and he knows doing well for Haas could further his cause.
The close partnership between the two squads means Ferrari will have access to far more data on Grosjean's driving than they otherwise would, something he feels could work to his advantage.
In an interview with Motorsport.com's Jonathan Noble, he said:
They [Ferrari] are certainly going to get all the data, and all the feedback from the engineers. The best I can do is to do my best and do my job. I didn't go to Haas to go to Ferrari. That is not the point.
I went to Haas because I like the project. I think it can be successful. It is an American team so there is a big market that will be nice for F1.
Of course the dream is [always] to go to Ferrari. Ferrari wants good drivers, and if you be the best you can be, then you have a chance.
Speaking to Sky Sports' Mike Wise ahead of August's Belgian Grand Prix, Grosjean indicated he had some form of discussions with Ferrari about replacing Raikkonen in 2016, so he appears to be on their radar.
In the end they opted to retain the Finn, but unless his performance dramatically improves in the season ahead, he won't be sticking around for 2017.
A good season with Haas should put Grosjean in the running again, and the certainty provided by access to his data could tip the balance in his favour.
Gutierrez will also be racing to impress Ferrari, though there's very little chance he will outperform Grosjean in 2016. Everything in their respective histories suggests the Frenchman is the superior driver, and he now has the experience and temperament to operate consistently at a high level.
Gene Haas has even stated that Grosjean will be the team's lead driver—a rarity in modern F1, and not a comment a team owner would make were he expecting a close battle between his two drivers.
But he could be forgiven for saying it. When we last saw Gutierrez in F1, he was trailing around near the rear of the field in an uncompetitive car that gave him few opportunities to shine. Prior to that, he had spent a year failing to regularly score in a car more than capable of points—as proved by Hulkenberg.
His record of one points finish in 38 races doesn't look good, but the statistics perhaps don't tell the whole story. An underfunded team with an uncompetitive car and no simulator on which to learn the tracks is not the best place for any rookie to start his career.
Of course, other drivers did just fine in similar circumstances—such as Felipe Nasr in 2015.
But still, Ferrari see something in Gutierrez, and as engine suppliers to the Swiss team while he was racing, they have more of an idea than most about his capabilities.
Haas certainly believes he could have a future at the Scuderia; speaking to Autosport's Ian Parkes, he revealed:
Ferrari is like a top-notch university, and if you go to that university then you have good credentials. If anything, most of it is the fact Ferrari said, 'Here's a driver you should consider and we would like to have him in your car.'
Ferrari was interested in Esteban driving. Part of it is they would like to try him out so that they can evaluate him for a Ferrari drive down the road.
I don't know what Ferrari's personal point of view is, but my point of view would be is they put talent in cars that they think have a potential to be their future drivers.
It's just as likely that Ferrari have placed the 24-year-old in the team for primarily commercial purposes. Latin America is a large and increasingly important market; a Spanish-speaking driver at a Ferrari-linked, North American team is a useful promotional asset.
The extra pennies from Carlos Slim's Claro, which will remain a sponsor of the team, won't hurt either.
But he shouldn't be written off entirely as a future Ferrari driver—even if he does, as is expected, come up short against Grosjean.
Ferrari's lineups since Michael Schumacher arrived in 1996 have almost without exception been geared toward supporting a single lead driver. Only in 2008 and 2009, when Raikkonen went off the boil, did the team find themselves without a clear No. 1.
With this in mind, the idea that Gutierrez could be the chosen one becomes a little more believable. If Ferrari want someone to nip at Vettel's heels and maybe even create a Mercedes-like atmosphere of competition in 2017 and beyond, Grosjean looks better placed to put his name into the mix.
But if they want a clear No. 2, perhaps Gutierrez will fit the bill. If he can prove he is a consistent, reliable finisher, he could be just what Ferrari need.
Speaking with Haas Formula One team principal Guenther Steiner in Montreal last summer, I made the mistake of asking how important it was for Haas to be seen as an American team.
"I wouldn't say the question is how much you want to be seen—we don't want to be seen. We are an American team," Steiner responded.
Indeed, the new team's headquarters are in Kannapolis, North Carolina, but when Marussia folded in 2014, Haas also purchased its old factory in Banbury, about 125 kilometres northwest of London. Haas' racing operations will be run from that Oxfordshire base, for logistical reasons.
Despite Steiner's protestations, it remains to be seen whether American Formula One fans will fully embrace the Haas team as their own, with so much work being done outside the country.
Aside from the factory in England, the Italian company Dallara—last seen in F1 in a disappointing partnership with Hispania Racing—was subcontracted to build the team's first chassis. Meanwhile, the engine, gearbox and many other parts will come from Ferrari. The drivers, Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez, are French and Mexican, respectively, and Steiner is from Italy.
Will American fans feel that Haas is truly an American team?
Mercedes is a German company, but their F1 team operates out of Brackley, a short drive from the Haas facility. The Silver Arrows are in the midst of a historically successful run, but judging by the small crowds at Hockenheim for the 2014 German Grand Prix and the cancellation of the race last year at the Nurburgring, the Mercs have not exactly captured the imagination and support of most German F1 fans.
And speaking of home races, the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin is another potential pitfall—not just for Haas, but for F1 in general in looking to crack the American market.
How many times can F1 break trust with American fans and sponsors (recall the debacle at the 2005 race and subsequent abandonment of Indianapolis) and still expect them to put money and effort into following the sport?
Make no mistake, it does take an effort to follow F1 in North America. Most races start early on Sunday mornings—very early if you are not on the East Coast—and aside from the on-track sessions, there isn't much television coverage to engage fans. It is hard to grow the sport if no one is aware of it.
On the way to the U.S. Grand Prix in 2014, I shared a flight with 30 or 40 members of the Sauber team and witnessed a confused conversation among the flight attendants and other passengers as they tried to figure out who all the people with team-branded clothes and luggage were and what was going on in Texas that weekend. A cab driver in Austin laughed when I asked whether he was as busy for the grand prix as he was when the University of Texas had a home football game.
"Not even close," he said.
On the other hand, Americans are passionate about sports in general and American teams in particular. Last summer, for example, Canada hosted the FIFA Women's World Cup and when the U.S. team played in Ottawa, where I live, the city was overrun with American fans.
When Americans see the Stars and Stripes on an F1 podium, whether it happens this year or takes a bit longer, they will cheer. For Haas to attract American fans, being seen as a winner is more important than whether the car is built in North Carolina or Oxfordshire.
"There's no point in saying we're American and we are last," Steiner told me. "We are still American, but we subcontract with other people which help us get there to have a good American team on the grid next year."
And there is also this to consider: Owner Gene Haas did not get involved in F1 to promote his machine tool company in the U.S., where it is already well-known and enjoys great exposure from the Stewart-Haas NASCAR team. Rather, as he recently told HJ Mai of SportsBusiness Daily:
Just like NASCAR is very dominant in the United States—half of our production is actually consumed in the United States—if we could increase our market share by even 1 or 2 percent in the rest of the world that would almost double our sales. That really is the goal to bring that brand recognition, produce more product in the United States and sell more overseas.
So the Haas team will not live and die based on the amount of homegrown support they receive. Still, there is a desire at the team to eventually do more of their work in the new facility built in Kannapolis.
"Over time, that is the plan," said Steiner. "That's why we constructed this facility in the U.S. At the moment, it's not fully occupied. But we can do everything there. So, when the time is appropriate, we will move more to the U.S."
Alexander Rossi, a Californian who raced for Manor in 2015, would have been a popular choice as a Haas driver among U.S. fans, but Haas and Steiner wanted more experience, leading them to Grosjean. Gutierrez raced two years for Sauber and served as a reserve driver for Ferrari last season. Haas' relationship with the Italian company clinched the decision to hire him.
Again, success will be the most important factor in drawing American fans to Haas. Rossi seems to agree.
"I think the fanbase is growing," he told me back in 2014. "But I don't think it will become a household topic of discussion until not only is there an American driver or an American team, but until there is a successful American driver or American team."
Even though Gene Haas wants to grow his business in other markets, Steiner said the team also feels a responsibility to the fans and the sport in the U.S.
"We will do our best to help it grow in America," he said. "It's part of our mission."
With winter testing starting in three weeks and less than two months until Haas' debut in Australia, it won't be long until we see some tangible evidence of the team's effect in America. Will NBC's ratings be up? Will the Circuit of the Americas see an attendance bump (assuming the race goes ahead this year)?
At the very least, a U.S. television ratings watch could become an interesting storyline to follow this year if Mercedes end up running away with the championship again.
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