Esteban Gutierrez says the race result at the British Grand Prix hid the progress made by Haas during recent weekends.
Haas has been struggling to get the most out of its tyres but performed strongly in Austria where Romain Grosjean scored points in seventh place and Gutierrez just missed out in 11th. At Silverstone, Haas qualified well with both cars near the top ten, but disappointing race pace saw the team fail to threaten the points.
Gutierrez says a change in conditions caught Haas out at Silverstone and was not a true reflection of the team's progress.
“We are optimistic that we are making good progress and having more consistency, and this has been shown in the good qualifying sessions and through the weekend showing consistent, good pace," Gutierrez said.
"Unfortunately, during the race there was 10 degrees less in track temperature, which affected the tyre performance and is a point that we need to improve. It was definitely not the race we expected, but we have to keep our optimism very high for the following two races, especially for Budapest.”
And Gutierrez is expecting it to be even more difficult to get the most out of the tyres in qualifying at the Hungaroring, an area Haas has struggled at times this year.
“That’s a characteristic of the Hungaroring. The tyres degrade very quickly, so it’s even more important in qualifying to be spot on the first lap and get the maximum out of the new tyres. You don’t have a second chance on this track to put a good lap time on the tyres.”
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