Haas Formula 1🐷 chief Guenther Steiner believes the team’s links to Ferrari would not be questioned if it was not competitive, but h🀅as learned to live with the criticism.

Haas has enjoyed a close technicꦅal partnership with Ferrari since ent♏ering F1 in 2016, and finished fifth in last year’s constructors’ championship.

The Haas model has been praised by some for taking advantage of F1’s rulebook that permits a certain level of꧙ purchased parts. But the team has also faced criticism from rivals who claim that it is simply a B-team to the Italian marque.

Speaking ahead of this week﷽end’s Chinese Grand Prix, Haas chief Steiner hit back at the critics, saying it is clear the team is doing nothing wrong.

“I don’t really care. Some of the🎃 people that say that﷽, I don’t really know what they mean by it,” Steiner said.

“I think they don’t know what they mean with it. It’s normally the people that cannot understand why we’re doing such a good job. They jus💦t say we’re copying Ferrari.

“There are clearly written rules – what you can and can’t do – and we do everything to the rulebook. I don’t really ca🦋re if they have a bad opinion about u﷽s.”

Haas said the close re🦩lationship between Ferrari and Haas has only faced s♋crutiny because of the team’s on-track success, fighting regularly against bigger operations such as Renault and McLaren.

“Nobody would care if we were at the b🌌ottom. Everybody would be happy,” Steiner said.

“That’s what evꦚeryone was expecting. That’s where they thought we would be when we got into Formula 1. It’s developed over the ✤years with people getting more critical. It goes hand-in-hand with our classifications.

“After a while,🐽 you get used to it💦. You live with it and don’t care.”