Haas boss Guenther Steiner hopes the team's improved performance in Japan can carry over to its first home race at the U.S. Grand Prix.
Despite a shaky start to Friday practice, the introduction of a new front wing saw both Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez make it through to Q3 at Suzuka. The team came away from the race empty-handed as Grosjean finished 11th but Steiner is buoyed by the improvement the team found with the new part.
"I think the new front wing they are very happy with that one, how it behaves, more total than overall downforce, it's more like the behaviour of the car now which he likes better and he can be more aggressive," Steiner said. "I think that's the main thing that we found the better balance.
"On Friday we struggled here, but I think I said it before and I may repeat myself we had this front wing since Malaysia but we were never able to test it properly and find a setup or balance with it, because we always had some struggles in FP1 or FP2. So if you have a little bit of struggle in one car, you need to find out about your tyres, you cannot develop a new front wing.
"There's no point to have a good front wing and you don't know what your tyres are doing, so we focussed on it here, we had a little bit of a better weekend without big mechanical failures or anything, so we got it sorted and we got a bit of an understanding for this track, I hope we can carry it into Austin. But that is the main reason for Romain to be a little bit happier."
The improvement came following an eventful Malaysian Grand Prix for the team, which saw Grosjean suffer a brake failure and Gutierrez lose a wheel mid-way through the race. Steiner thinks the quick turnaround underlined the strength of Haas' operation.
"Our plate was full after Malaysia to sort out the problems we had and also try to make the car quicker and get a better set-up. I think everyone worked hard and we achieved a lot in a very short time. So, again, that shows for me how the team is getting better.
"After Malaysia everything went wrong which could go wrong, we had so many broken parts. The guys here arrived ready to go again. We didn't have any stupid late nights here, we had one night anti-curfew but the rest the guys went home before so we are getting more efficient in how we do things and just better prepared.
"We can't have this without giving the time, because experience ... you need to make it. To make experience takes time and the only thing you cannot buy is time. So I think we made progress again. Of course you always make a step forward and then two back and then that is how you steadily come up. As long as you make progress I think we are happy, we are good."