Guenther Steiner has clarified comments made by Gene Haas about his American outfit's team having a better chassis than Ferrari this year.

Haas made extensive use of Ferrari's Maranello wind tunnel to develop its 2016 car, which will be powered by the Italian manufacturer. In November team owner Haas said the team's first car would "in some ways be better" than Ferrari's due to the design approach the American team had taken.

Steiner, the team principal for Haas this season, thinks his boss was misunderstood and had been referring to the amount of time the North Carolina-based squad had to work on development.

"What Gene meant is that our chassis is different in construction than the Ferrari and we've had more time to work on it," Steiner told the official F1 website. "But that fact is that right now it's merely a guess as to where everyone stands. Everyone has been developing their cars. We'll get a better idea as to where everyone is after testing, but we won't really know anything until we actually start racing in Melbourne."

Steiner has downplayed expectations about Haas' debut season before and says a realistic expectation for 2016 will be behind Toro Rosso, even though it will line up this season with Ferrari engines one year older.

"We hope to line up somewhere in the lower midfield. It is always very difficult to predict how other teams will be doing before testing, but I think with Toro Rosso being a well-established team they should be in front of us - even with a one-year old engine."