Haas F1 car no longer plagued by “nasty” characteristics

The American-owned outfit completed backside of the constructors’ championship in 2023 after Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg discovered themselves struggling for tempo in races because of tyre points.

Nicely conscious of how a lot the issue held it again, Haas headed into F1’s pre-season check in Bahrain final week with an entire concentrate on race-distance runs to attempt to unravel what was going unsuitable.

Having felt inspired by the solutions it acquired from its new VF-24, Haas boss Ayao Komatsu feels that Magnussen and Hulkenberg can take pleasure in a lot larger consistency within the season forward.

“Final yr’s automotive was inconsistent, it was fairly nasty,” mentioned Komatsu. “Relying on the situations – tyre situation, wind situation or monitor temperature – the automotive actually wasn’t behaving in a predictable method.

“Whereas this yr’s automotive is behaving in a predictable method. It’s constant. Sure, we’re nonetheless missing downforce, particularly in high-speed and kind of balancing medium/low-speed traits, however I do not assume it is acquired nasty traits.”

Komatsu believes that its efforts have paid off in serving to ship what he considers an “acceptable” baseline to begin to the season with, previous to upgrades arriving sooner or later within the early section of the marketing campaign.

And the mindset of drilling down in organising the automotive for race tempo, somewhat than grid slot, is one thing that Komatsu says will probably be maintained for the remainder of the season.

Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24

Photograph by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Pictures

“You’ve got to resolve what the largest downside is you need to resolve,” he mentioned. “There isn’t any level qualifying in P7 and going backwards on Sunday. I might somewhat qualify P14 however have a automotive we will race and rise up to the highest 10. That is our goal.

“I am not going to out of the blue flip up subsequent weekend right here after which begin optimizing a automotive for qualifying, no.”

Whereas this strategy means Haas might not have as many fulfilling Saturdays in 2024, he thinks that finally it would ship a greater platform for the staff.

“Everyone is aware of our downside and the way irritating that’s, proper?” he mentioned. “Have a look at Abu Dhabi, final race of the season, primarily with the launch automotive. We will qualify P8, which is unbelievable, however all of us knew, Saturday evening, we won’t do something on Sunday.

“We lived by way of that final yr. In that sense, it isn’t tough to persuade everybody.

“However on the identical time, after all, everybody desires to learn the way fast is our automotive on one-lap tempo. However the message needed to be clear.

“If there’s one factor we would have liked to come back out from this check, it was studying about tyre administration, and our long-run tempo. So as soon as you bought the target, that is what we’re doing. Every little thing else is noise.”