Steiner: Shortening races could improve F1

Haas team principal Gunther Steiner believes that by shortening races, Formula One could improve wheel-to-wheel racing. 2018 has been a season of tyre management for teams with data pointing to the one-stop strategy as the fastest method to the line, it has prevented drivers from pushing flat out.

Although Haas was recently caught out in Austin for breaking the technical regulations with Kevin Magnussen by using over the 105kg of fuel permitted during the race, Steiner says that by shortening races by a small amount, the racing could improve with it.

"I'm not trying to find an excuse for what we did," he said in the team personnel press conference in Mexico.

"We fought hard and we deal with the consequences, we are fully OK with that - but I think if we would shorten the race, for example, leave the regulations where they are so we don't have to spend money to design new fuel cells or whatever, just reduce the race three laps, you would have wide open racing the whole race - and I think there you would have more overtaking than by lift-and-coast."

Rival team boss Otmar Szafnaeur says that the change could lead to more of the same, with teams looking to run as little fuel as possible it would just mean less fuel in the car with the same fuel-saving issues.

"But even if you don't have those fuel limits, we will always be making trade-offs between how much fuel we put in the car, such that we get to the end in the shortest amount of time.

"Even in the past, where you don't have a fuel limit. You don't quite fuel it... you fuel it to the point where your total race time is lowest and that sometimes means fuel saving.

"And, to the contrary, if we're fuel-saving, at a different time to when somebody else is, it could help overtaking. You know, I think Haas maybe didn't do the fuel saving when they were trying to attack us but if there is a time in the race, and it often happens, somebody's fuel-saving when we aren't, that's a good time to attack. So, you see, it can help with overtaking. Just the opposite."