Haas Team Principal, Gunther Steiner has said his team are expecting to struggle with cooling at the Mexican Grand Prix this weekend.

Haas comes into the weekend ninth in the constructor’s standings, just seven points behind Alfa Romeo, but are concerned that they could be in for a tough time in Mexico, with the team not having scored points at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez since Kevin Magnussen’s eighth place in 2017.

The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez sits 7,500ft above sea level, making the oxygen levels lower, and as a result, this puts extra pressure on the power units of the cars and increases the running temperatures.

With the reduced levels of oxygen, Haas are wary of their chances coming into the Mexican Grand Prix, after a difficult weekend last year in which they qualified 16th and 18th, before both cars were the last classified finishers in the race, and Steiner has highlighted that cooling will be an issue for them.

“We always have cooling challenges [at the Mexican Grand Prix].” commented Steiner.

“Going up into the altitude there, you always need cooling on the cars.

“You need a lot more, and that takes downforce away, and you never have enough downforce.”

Although Haas have shown good one lap pace during the course of this season, they have continually struggled to show the same speed over a race distance, and the team recently reverted back to the specification used in Australia in order to resolve their issues.

The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez requires a car that can manage its cooling well whilst also being able to maintain strong downforce levels, and Steiner believes that finding the right balance between both elements will be their strongest challenge.

“It looks like we always suffer more on that one [downforce] than all the other cars.” added Steiner.

“That is our biggest challenge, to find the balance between cooling and having downforce available.”