Guenther Steiner has ruled out the possibility of Haas switching brake supplier before the end of this season.
Brake-related problems have become a regular theme during Haas' maiden Formula One campaign and following further issues in Austin, where Esteban Gutierrez was forced to retire with disc failure, Steiner suggested the team could move away from current supplier Brembo. Ahead of this weekend's Mexican Grand Prix, team boss Steiner moved to clarify the situation, confirming a change of brake material.
"[It's] just material, we don't need to change anything else," he said. "We just use a different material. We didn't try this before as far as I know. It is a new material to us."
When asked if Haas could swap brake suppliers ahead of next month's Brazilian Grand Prix if the team endures more reliability woes in Mexico, Steiner replied: "No. Brake material is very complex and therefore it isn't easy and so therefore we don't have to badmouth Brembo too much about it because it is very difficult.
"If you change to another material it takes a lot of lead time because it takes a long time to make and to make quantities is difficult because nobody makes big quantities and next year the brake material will be different because of the wider tyres and all that stuff.
"It would be very difficult to do anything for this year. I am confident we will find a solution tomorrow with Brembo to overcome the problem until the end of the year."
Haas were also dogged by brake problems in Bahrain, Malaysia and Japan but fellow Brembo-supplied team Ferrari has not suffered similar issues this year. Steiner says he cannot explain why the problems have only affected his team.
"I cannot give you a straight answer because I don't know what Ferrari is running," he said. "It is difficult for me to say. You say Ferrari hasn't got the problem, but I don't know what material they are running. I know they are running Brembo, but I don't know what kind of material. So I cannot answer that question why they have no problem.
"We need to find out with Brembo and for Brembo to come up with a solution so we don't have a problem or if we do something wrong, we are advised how to do it right because we have just done it how we have been told. If there is somewhere in our process something wrong with it, we have given our process to Brembo, and we haven't heard this is wrong."