Haas do not have a spare car to fall back on at this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix due to Mick Schumacher’s heavy crash at the previous race.
Schumacher shunted his VF-22 heavily during the qualifying session for the second round of the championship in Saudi Arabia. He did not take part in the race as the team said it did not want to risk further damage to one of its cars.
Team principal Guenther Steiner confirmed today Haas will not have a back-up chassis if it suffers more heavy damage to a car this weekend.
“The situation with spare parts is as expected on race number two after a big crash,” he said. “We have got everything but we have no abundance of spare parts.”
The team had to freight Schumacher’s damaged car directly to Australia from Saudi Arabia before returning it to its base in Europe.
“We sent it back, at the beginning of the week, to Europe so we get it ready for Imola,” said Steiner. “We had to bring it here because of customs formalities, it had to be entered here and then it could be shipped back to Europe from here and it’s on it’s way back now.”
Despite the spares shortage, Steiner said he won’t instruct Schumacher or team mate Kevin Magnussen to alter their approach this weekend.
“I think you cannot approach it different,” he said. “The drivers are aware of the situation, there is no spare chassis, but that can happen sometimes that there is no spare chassis.
“I’m not panicking and if something happens we will deal with it as it comes along. You cannot say ‘go out there and drive slowly’, that doesn’t make sense as well, it’s just like don’t take extra risks if you don’t have to.”
Schumacher played down any concerns the lack of a spare may have on their weekend. “I think that everything’s going to be just fine,” he said. “We will be quick, hopefully, and we’ll for sure not need that spare one.”
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