The 2023 season saw the American-owned Haas F1 team struggle, finishing at the bottom of the constructors’ championship due to persistent issues with tire performance hampering drivers Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg during races.
Recognizing the significant setback these problems caused, Haas approached the pre-season testing in Bahrain last week with a singular focus on understanding and addressing these issues through extensive race-distance simulations.
Ayao Komatsu, the team principal of Haas, expressed optimism after the testing sessions, noting that their new car, the VF-24, showed promising signs of improved consistency compared to its predecessor.
Komatsu remarked, “Last year’s car was inconsistent, it was quite nasty. Depending on the conditions – tire condition, wind condition, or track temperature – the car really wasn’t behaving in a predictable manner. Whereas this year’s car is behaving in a predictable manner. It’s consistent.”
Despite acknowledging that the team still faces challenges, particularly with downforce and balancing high-speed with medium/low-speed characteristics, Komatsu believes they have achieved an “acceptable” baseline for the upcoming season, with further upgrades expected early in the campaign.
Maintaining a strategic focus on optimizing the car for race pace rather than prioritizing grid positions is a philosophy that Komatsu intends to uphold throughout the season.
“You have got to decide what the biggest problem is you want to solve,” he explained. “There is no point qualifying in P7 and going backwards on Sunday. I’d rather qualify P14 but have a car we can race and get up to the top 10. That’s our objective.”
While this approach may result in fewer standout performances during qualifying sessions, Komatsu believes it will ultimately provide a more solid foundation for the team’s success.
“Everybody knows our problem and how frustrating that is, right?” he emphasized. “Look at Abu Dhabi, last race of the season, essentially with the launch car. We can qualify P8, which is fantastic, but all of us knew, Saturday night, we can’t do anything on Sunday.”
He stressed the importance of maintaining a clear focus on the team’s objectives, prioritizing tire management and long-run pace over single-lap speed.
“If there’s one thing we needed to come out from this test, it was learning about tire management, and our long-run pace. So once you got the objective, that’s what we’re doing. Everything else is noise.”
