“I wouldn’t say relief but I think we will feel pretty happy.”
Gunther Steiner, the team principal of the Haas Formula One team, took a long pause as he considered what his emotions will be on Sunday once the chequered flag has fallen to end the 2016 season at the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
It will complete the team’s first season since arriving in F1, and Steiner, who has overseen the team’s performances over the past 20 races, is content with how they have fared with 29 points scored.
“I think it has gone pretty well,” the Italian said. “We are eighth in the championship at the moment.
“Would we like to be seventh? Yes, for sure. But I think we showed that we can do the job and we are now pretty well established in Formula One. We are almost at the end of our first season and we are working hard to get ready for next season.”
The team were the inspiration of Gene Haas, who has enjoyed considerable success in the United States as a team owner in the Nascar series, and was looking to enter the world of F1.
More Formula One:
• Exclusive interview: Daniel Ricciardo reflects on his 2016 season
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• Max Verstappen: Compared to F1 greats 'special' drive in Brazil
Haas was given a licence by the FIA, motorsport’s ruling body, to enter a team in F1 in 2014, with the decision then taken to spend 2015 preparing to enter the series this year.
Steiner had previous experience in F1 as the technical director of Jaguar and then as the technical operations director of Red Bull Racing in 2005.
He then moved to the US to be involved in Nascar with the formation of a Red Bull team in the Sprint Cup series, but after forming his own race car development company, FibreWorks Composites, he was approached by Haas to handle the day-to-day operations of bringing the car to the grid as team principal.
As to what tempted him to the role, Steiner said: “The challenge. It is pretty easy. The challenge to do this.
“I have been in motorsport for 30 years. I think this is my biggest project, and you always try to do something bigger than the last one in my opinion, or I anyway do, and this is a challenge because a lot of people have failed in doing it and I was pretty sure that it can be done.
“When I got together with Gene he seemed the right guy to do this and we got it done.”
The team have a staff of around 200, and while they remain an American team, with their base at Kannapolis, North Carolina, where Haas’s Nascar team are also based, they also have a factory in Banbury, England, so they can operate more easily in and around the European races.
Haas formed a partnership with Ferrari for their arrival in the series, with the team receiving a power unit, suspension systems and other technical elements.
While Haas received some criticism from other teams for the arrangement, Steiner said it was a sensible approach for a team new to the series and starting from scratch with no previous data to work with.
“Crucial,” he said of Ferrari’s role. “Very crucial. These cars, technically are so sophisticated, so if you start from nothing and design everything on your own it would take years and billions of dollars. Without Ferrari and without the set up the way we are doing it wouldn’t have happened, it would have been almost mission impossible.”
The team got off to a great start when they made their race debut in Australia in March as Romain Grosjean, who joined Haas from Lotus, finished fifth.
It was the best F1 debut result for a new team since Sauber finished fifth in the 1993 South African Grand Prix.
Grosjean was sixth in the following race in Bahrain, too, but points have proven harder to come by since then, with only a further 11 scored as the team have struggled for reliability and consistency. Indeed, the team’s other driver, Esteban Gutierrez, is yet to score a point this year.
“We are a little disappointed that we couldn’t follow it up with more,” Steiner said. “We are always between 11th and 14th.
“I think we have finished five or six times in 11th this year which is disappointing, but on the other side you need to be realistic. Being 11th in F1, you’re not bad.
“But as you said, the first two races we were living the dream.”
As to the secret of running a successful F1 team, Steiner said it was simply about good recruitment and having a positive approach to the challenges facing them.
“For me it was mainly hiring the right people,” he said. “You need the mix of experience and ‘I want to do this’ attitude and you need somebody who supports all of this, Mr Haas, to give us the possibility to do this and he did, and the most important thing is everyone who joined us did what they said they were going to do and that made it possible.
“It is not easy as there are lots of things you need to look after and plus once you get going you are racing at least every two weeks so there is that pressure on as well. But it is very satisfying if you get it done right.”
Assessing the season, with Haas on track to finish ahead of Renault, Manor and Sauber in the constructors’ standings, Steiner said: “If we finish Abu Dhabi in eighth position we are pretty happy.
“We achieved a goal that we set ourself. But then at the same time the chequered flag drops and we are readying for 2017 as it is the end of November and it is not long until the next season.”
Steiner already has his sights on 2017 and the challenges of developing a new car to confirm with new aerodynamic-related technical regulations, as well as wider tyres from Pirelli.
“Next year, I wouldn’t say it will be a difficult year, but a very unknown year,” he said.
“We are going into very unknown territory with the regulations because we don’t know who will be good or who will be bad next year.
“I hope we will be good but it is a hope, we don’t know, but it could go the other way and we could be bad. February will be an eye-opener for all of us.”
But Steiner is confident that with 12 months of experience under their belt, he and his team will cope with whatever F1 will throw at them in the coming months as they continue to develop.
“We know our processes better, we know a lot of things better and you just learn as you go along,” he said.
“We have recruited a few people, we were weak in certain areas technically and we can be better prepared.”
gcaygill@thenational.ae
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The%20specs
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Correspondents
By Tim Murphy
(Grove Press)
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylturbo
Transmission: seven-speed DSG automatic
Power: 242bhp
Torque: 370Nm
Price: Dh136,814
Results:
CSIL 2-star 145cm One Round with Jump-Off
1. Alice Debany Clero (USA) on Amareusa S 38.83 seconds
2. Anikka Sande (NOR) For Cash 2 39.09
3. Georgia Tame (GBR) Cash Up 39.42
4. Nadia Taryam (UAE) Askaria 3 39.63
5. Miriam Schneider (GER) Fidelius G 47.74
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
Abramovich London
A Kensington Palace Gardens house with 15 bedrooms is valued at more than £150 million.
A three-storey penthouse at Chelsea Waterfront bought for £22 million.
Steel company Evraz drops more than 10 per cent in trading after UK officials said it was potentially supplying the Russian military.
Sale of Chelsea Football Club is now impossible.
How to play the stock market recovery in 2021?
If you are looking to build your long-term wealth in 2021 and beyond, the stock market is still the best place to do it as equities powered on despite the pandemic.
Investing in individual stocks is not for everyone and most private investors should stick to mutual funds and ETFs, but there are some thrilling opportunities for those who understand the risks.
Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, says the 20 best-performing US and European stocks have delivered an average return year-to-date of 148 per cent, measured in local currency terms.
Online marketplace Etsy was the best performer with a return of 330.6 per cent, followed by communications software company Sinch (315.4 per cent), online supermarket HelloFresh (232.8 per cent) and fuel cells specialist NEL (191.7 per cent).
Mr Garnry says digital companies benefited from the lockdown, while green energy firms flew as efforts to combat climate change were ramped up, helped in part by the European Union’s green deal.
Electric car company Tesla would be on the list if it had been part of the S&P 500 Index, but it only joined on December 21. “Tesla has become one of the most valuable companies in the world this year as demand for electric vehicles has grown dramatically,” Mr Garnry says.
By contrast, the 20 worst-performing European stocks fell 54 per cent on average, with European banks hit by the economic fallout from the pandemic, while cruise liners and airline stocks suffered due to travel restrictions.
As demand for energy fell, the oil and gas industry had a tough year, too.
Mr Garnry says the biggest story this year was the “absolute crunch” in so-called value stocks, companies that trade at low valuations compared to their earnings and growth potential.
He says they are “heavily tilted towards financials, miners, energy, utilities and industrials, which have all been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic”. “The last year saw these cheap stocks become cheaper and expensive stocks have become more expensive.”
This has triggered excited talk about the “great value rotation” but Mr Garnry remains sceptical. “We need to see a breakout of interest rates combined with higher inflation before we join the crowd.”
Always remember that past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. Last year’s winners often turn out to be this year’s losers, and vice-versa.
Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin
Company profile
Name: Infinite8
Based: Dubai
Launch year: 2017
Number of employees: 90
Sector: Online gaming industry
Funding: $1.2m from a UAE angel investor
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
MATCH INFO
Tottenham Hotspur 3 (Son 1', Kane 8' & 16') West Ham United 3 (Balbuena 82', Sanchez og 85', Lanzini 90' 4)
Man of the match Harry Kane
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
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