The 2023 F1 season begins with one of the sport’s greats, Günther Steiner, continuing to lead Haas as they aim to fight for the top spot.
The 2024 season will begin with some introspection for outfielder Steiner, who was fired earlier this year and replaced by Ayao Komatsu.
Despite expectations of a top finish, and despite qualifying pace that made it seem like such a finish was possible, Haas limped to a 10th place finish last year. , whose qualifying pace was ruined by tire management struggles on Sunday.
The team is currently preparing for the Bahrain Grand Prix, and there is some hope that the three days of pre-season testing there have helped the team iron out issues that plagued it a season ago.
“First and foremost, the whole purpose of pre-season testing was to improve race performance and race tire wear management, which was the main weakness last year. So we focused completely on that.” Komatsu explained in the team’s media preview.
“On the first day we were able to make pretty good progress both on the car set-up and on the driving side. On the second day we continued to focus on tire management, but also gave direction to the aero team for future development.” We’ve also focused on giving gender, which we really need to get right this year,” added Haas’ new boss. “We did that well, so going into the third day, it wasn’t necessarily in our plan to do qualifying simulations, but we’ve done enough to say with confidence that we’ll see fuel-efficient performance as well.” We’ve made progress. At the same time, from a reliability and race simulation standpoint, that’s what we’ve been focused on.”
Komatsu said the team can focus on achieving its main objectives in pre-season testing and seeing if race pace matches its qualifying ability.
“Overall, I think we have achieved our original objectives of understanding tire performance, giving the aero team direction for future development plans, and approving qualifying for performance and reliability. Focusing first on race performance. I think we’ll continue to do what we did during testing, which is to guess and then work on qualifying,” Komatsu added. “So in FP1, FP2 and FP3, we’re not going to throw away what we’ve learned from here. We’ve got the basic foundation here, so next week we’ll focus on fine-tuning and maybe get two-thirds good results.” It would be a better compromise between qualifying and racing. Last year we qualified eighth, but we knew we couldn’t race there, so we can adjust there. ”
Photo by Gabe Ginsburg – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg, who will return as drivers for the 2024 season, are looking at the season with a positive outlook. How positive are you? Drivers are currently trying not to get their hopes up ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
“We can feel good about the test. The goal was to work on long runs with high fuel to address the main issues from last year and were race related, but I think we have made progress.” declared Magnussen. “I don’t want to get our hopes up, but I think there’s still a lot of work to do, but the work we’ve done over the winter and in the last few days of testing has shown some success.”
“Overall, pre-season testing was good and positive. It’s always difficult, you don’t want to get too excited or get too enthusiastic, but we’ve definitely improved in certain areas that we struggled with last year. It was good to see and feel, but it was very necessary,” Hulkenberg added. “It’s too early to say how we are on the ground, but it’s been a fun couple of days and a success from a test execution and reliability standpoint. We’re looking forward to getting the season started. I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops.”
While it may be too early to say what kind of situation Haas is actually in, Magnussen pointed out that the atmosphere around the team is as positive as it has been at Haas for some time.
“We’re looking forward to seeing where we are in the race. It’s always the final test to see if we’ve made progress,” Magnussen added. “Everyone is in good spirits. The team atmosphere is really good, something I haven’t felt in a while.”
A year ago, Haas won the Bahrain Grand Prix empty-handed, with Magnussen finishing 13th and Hulkenberg 15th.
Could the team get a better result and maybe some points this week?
