Guenther Steiner says the Haas team did not exceed the budget it set aside for its debut season in Formula One this year.
Haas became the first new team to join the grid since 2010, entering the sport with a controversial technical partnership with Ferrari. That tie-up included an engine and as many parts as the regulations allowed, while the team also worked with Italian chassis designers Dallara.
Much was made of Haas' business model, with some concerned it could open the door to fully-fledged customer cars in future, though Steiner says it helped the team control spending for its first season.
When asked if he had to ask team owner Gene Haas for money during the season, Steiner said: "We didn't. We made a budget and we stuck to it pretty good. It seems like everybody goes into F1, in the old days, they didn't know what they were doing.
"I think we can say our business plan worked even if a lot of people questioned if it could work beforehand and said we would be just like one of the other ones who came in in the last years. I think we have shown we do what we say we are going to do, and we did the same internally. We said to Gene, 'this will be the cost of this', and we stuck to it. So we didn't have to go back."
Haas exceeded all expectations in 2016, finishing 6th and 5th in the opening two races and finishing the season with 29 points, enough to finish eighth ahead of one of F1's four manufacturers, Renault. With big rule changes on the horizon for 2017 Steiner is braced for a different scenario next season, though he believes most financial decisions for the whole year will be based on how the teams fare in winter testing.
"If you run a business, and I see F1 as a business, if you have to go back every five weeks saying 'oh, I need another two million', it gets old pretty quick. Then the trust is lost. We didn't do that and I hope we don't ever have to do that.
"Next year the risk is much bigger because of the upgrade but it's like, what do we want to achieve? We will see in February [when winter testing starts] where we are and then you see what you really need to do."