The midfield in the World Championship standings is buzzing with tension. Only twelve points separate the teams from sixth to ninth place, and Haas has put itself back in the thick of the fight with a strong double points finish in Mexico. Oliver Bearman surprised with an impressive fourth place, but according to Günther Steiner, the entire picture could completely flip after just one race.
The former Haas team boss spoke about the unpredictable battle in the midfield in the Red Flags podcast. According to him, one strong weekend can sometimes be enough to make a significant leap. “You only need one lucky race,” says Steiner. “Not even necessarily luck, just a well-executed race – like Ollie (Bearman) in Mexico – and you’re suddenly back in the fight.”
However, Steiner warns that the form of one race says little about the rest of the season. “I wouldn’t take the results from Mexico as a benchmark. That circuit is really an outlier because of the altitude,” he explains. “Aston Martin struggled there, but on other circuits, they suddenly score a heap of points. Singapore was a good example of that – no one understood where that result suddenly came from. It keeps going up and down. Racing Bulls seem fairly solid in sixth place, but even they have not been able to get it together in the last races.”
Struggle to the End
With only a few races left, the fight for sixth place in the constructors’ championship promises to be a heated battle. One strong weekend – or a ‘lucky race’, as Steiner calls it – could easily make the difference between sixth and ninth in the final standings. Last year, Alpine showed how quickly such a leap can happen: from ninth to sixth place thanks to a second and third place in the Brazilian GP. Such a result can mean a lot for a team. Formula 1 teams receive more money the higher they finish in the constructors’ championship. At the same time, the better-performing teams are allocated fewer wind tunnel hours, limiting their development possibilities. It is therefore a delicate balance between prize money and technical development.
