Amid accusations the new Haas F1 car bears striking similarities to last year's Ferrari, team principal Guenther Steiner has defended his team's 2018 design.
The impressive pace of the Haas at the opening round in Australia led a number of rivals to voice suspicions about the car. The accusations are based on Haas' close relationship with Ferrari, which supplies as many common components to the American team as is allowed under the regulations.
Those common components include the engine, gearbox and suspension but must not, according to the regulations, include aerodynamic surfaces.
Over the Australian Grand Prix weekend, McLaren driver Fernando Alonso referred to the Haas as a "Ferrari replica of last year" while Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said his drivers got stuck behind both 2017 and 2018 Ferraris during the race, referring to his drivers' battles first with the Haas drivers and then Daniel Ricciardo's battle with Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari.
The rival teams have been reluctant to make a direct accusation about the Haas VF-18, but the suspicions were summed up by Force India COO Otmar Szafnauer, who pointed out the discrepancy between Haas' workforce and its position on the grid.
"You've first got to understand the details of what they are doing, and we don't," he said. "I don't know how they do it, it's magic.
"It's never been done before in Formula One; to have the smallest amount of resource and you magic up a fast car. I don't know how that happens.
"Does it happen by magic? If it does I want the wand.
"I just don't know how it can be right for someone who has been in the sport for a couple of years with no resource to produce a car like that."
Haas boss Steiner said his team's rivals are free to voice their opinion but he is in no doubt that his team has stuck to the regulations.
"Everybody is free to an opinion but an opinion without knowledge means I don't have to think about it," Steiner said. "Everybody can say what they want but we know what we are doing and we have a team which can be proud of what it is doing and what it is achieving at the moment.
"I don't care, they can say whatever they want. We are not doing anything we can't or anything we shouldn't be doing. We are completely honest."
FIA approval
At the start of the race weekend, the head of the FIA's technical department Charlie Whiting was asked to comment on the legality of the relationship between Haas and Ferrari.
"We know exactly what's going on between Haas and Ferrari, which is completely legal," Whiting said. "Last year we had one team expressing some concerns, but we have not seen anything that concerns us at the moment."
Haas driver Romain Grosjean said the comments of rival teams were unfair and only ever emerge when his team is outperforming the rest of F1's midfield.
"It's the same thing every time we are fast," Grosjean said. "I think it as the same thing last year -- we were a Ferrari B-team.
"We are using the same suspension, gearbox and engine and everyone knows that the suspension are defining a lot of the flow [of the aerodynamics], so of course there are going to be similarities. But we are doing our own car and if we were copying Ferrari we would be up there with them.
"It's not nice for the people that work at Haas and are producing the Haas VF-18. The way we operate the team and the way we have our partnership with Ferrari is good for F1 and shows a new team can come and make things look pretty good in a short amount of time. Of course, if we had to make everything from zero we would be nowhere compared to where we are today."