Tag: haas

Steiner out at Haas as Komatsu takes over as team principal

Guenther Steiner has been replaced as Haas team principal, with Ayao Komatsu taking over the position. Steiner has been in charge of Haas since the team’s inception in 2014, overseeing team principal duties for team owner Gene Haas. The team opted …

Guenther Steiner has been replaced as Haas team principal, with Ayao Komatsu taking over the position.

Steiner has been in charge of Haas since the team’s inception in 2014, overseeing team principal duties for team owner Gene Haas. The team opted to delay its debut season until 2016 but enjoyed a sensational opening few rounds, picking up 22 of its 29 points in the first four races before finishing eighth in the constructors’ championship.

After a best finish of fifth overall in 2018, the popular team boss guided Haas through the COVID-19 pandemic and after a scoreless 2021 the team was again eighth in 2022. However, after slipping to the bottom of the constructors’ championship last season, team owner Haas has decided to replace Steiner with trackside engineering director Komatsu.

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“I’d like to start by extending my thanks to Guenther Steiner for all his hard work over the past decade and I wish him well for the future,” Haas said. “Moving forward as an organization it was clear we need to improve our on-track performances. In appointing Ayao Komatsu as team principal we fundamentally have engineering at the heart of our management.

“We have had some successes, but we need to be consistent in delivering results that help us reach our wider goals as an organization. We need to be efficient with the resources we have but improving our design and engineering capability is key to our success as a team. I’m looking forward to working with Ayao and fundamentally ensuring that we maximize our potential — this truly reflects my desire to compete properly in Formula 1.”

Ayao Komatsu has served as Chief Race Engineer at Haas F1 since its launch, and has now been elevated to the team principal role. Andy Hone/Motorsport Images

Komatsu has also been with Haas since the team first joined the grid, and will be supported in his new role by a European-based chief operations officer that the team says will manage all non-competition matters and departments.

“I’m naturally very excited to have the opportunity to be team principal at MoneyGram Haas F1 Team,” Komatsu said.. “Having been with the team since its track debut back in 2016 I’m obviously passionately invested in its success in Formula 1. I’m looking forward to leading our program and the various competitive operations internally to ensure we can build a structure that produces improved on-track performances.

“We are a performance-based business. We obviously haven’t been competitive enough recently, which has been a source of frustration for us all. We have amazing support from Gene and our various partners, and we want to mirror their enthusiasm with an improved on-track product. We have a great team of people across Kannapolis, Banbury and Maranello and together I know we can achieve the kind of results we’re capable of.”

Haas needs short-term gains before big changes – Steiner

Haas needs to ensure it improves its position within Formula 1 in the short term before considering more major changes to the way the team is structured, according to team principal Guenther Steiner. The 2023 season started encouragingly for Haas …

Haas needs to ensure it improves its position within Formula 1 in the short term before considering more major changes to the way the team is structured, according to team principal Guenther Steiner.

The 2023 season started encouragingly for Haas but it soon faded with poor race pace and the team ended up finishing at the bottom of the constructors’ standings. With many of its rivals currently investing heavily in new infrastructure, Haas retains its setup that employs Dallara’s manufacturing capabilities alongside a Ferrari partnership, and Steiner says it has proven successful in the past.

“Nobody wants to be 10th here,” Steiner told RACER. “You feel the pressure, obviously, because you want to do better. If I didn’t feel the pressure then I would be happy with that, and I’m for sure not happy with where we are.

“I think what we need is to work hard and find the performance on the car so that we can get better… we know we can do it because we have done it before.

“We did this analysis of what we need to do. I think at the moment where we are is actually a help to move forward again, because you can rely on what we have got and what we have done before. If we now try to do everything ourselves, normally when you would do such a big step you have to make a step backward to do two forward, so the risk would be even bigger to be worse off than we are now for the short term.

“Obviously the mid- and long term is a different story, but at the moment we need to get out of the hole in the short term in my opinion to show what we can do, and then we can think, ‘Could we allow ourselves to make a step backwards?’ But if you make a step backwards now, where do we end up?

“So at the moment we need to be patient and conscious and work with this business concept we are using now, with this model, and just try to get back to where we were a few years ago.”

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Although Haas effectively wrote off its 2021 season to stabilize financially and be able to invest in its 2022 car, Steiner says the way F1 has changed in such a short space of time makes a similar decision less likely.

“You never want to do that — you cannot allow yourself to even think about that,” he said. “It’s not like I can go out there and say, ‘Yeah, we’ve decided for two years we will definitely finish 10th.’ We have done that before when we were struggling in the COVID years; we cannot do that and we do not want to do that because we have also a responsibility to all the people who work here who put a lot of effort in to move forward.

“We just need to push that we do what we did before. We always were the smallest team and finished very well. It’s not like it’s just now; the last three or four years there was no bad team in Formula 1 — they were all very good.

“Everything is getting closer and closer together. I go back to the Brazilian qualifying — from P1 to P20 in Q1 there was around 0.8s. 0.8s is nothing. So it’s just like that little bit and that little more can move you quite a bit.”

Haas USGP review request dismissed by stewards

The Haas request for a right to review the results of the United States Grand Prix due to track limits violations has been dismissed by the stewards. The petition was lodged over the weekend in Interlagos and focused on the stewards’ decision to …

The Haas request for a right to review the results of the United States Grand Prix due to track limits violations has been dismissed by the stewards.

The petition was lodged over the weekend in Interlagos and focused on the stewards’ decision to take no further action over Alex Albon potentially exceeding track limits at Circuit of The Americas, despite an investigation at the time. Haas was also wanting a review of the final classification due to a number of other instances it had spotted, including by Logan Sargeant, Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll. All related to the drivers leaving the track at Turn 6 on multiple occasions, with Williams, Red Bull and Aston Martin part of the hearing as a result.

However, with Haas only basing its petition on the on-board footage from each of the cars involved — Albon, Sargeant, Perez and Stroll — the stewards dismissed its request, determining that the footage is not new and was available to Haas at the time.

Explaining why the footage was not accepted at the time to punish Albon, the stewards explained that it’s due to the need for consistent camera angles for all competitors at all times.

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“Track limit infringements are almost universally enforced based on principal video evidence from a fixed CCTV camera of adequate resolution positioned to clearly see a car’s position in relation to the track limit boundary,” the stewards’ decision read. “The CCTV camera for Turn 6 did not meet that standard as it did not cover the apex of the corner.

“Because onboard cameras are only useful for verifying a breach when viewing a car in front of the camera car and not the camera car itself, the stewards believed they could not accurately and consistently conclude whether a breach occurred for every car on every lap.

“Anecdotal usage of trailing car video, which may or may not be available for any given car’s potential breach at any given time does not meet that accurate and consistent evidence standard.”

Haas’ request to revisit the final classification based on potential other breaches was also dismissed as the on-board footage was available at the time, and because that can only be dealt with by protesting the lack of decisions made at the time, rather than requesting a right of review.

“The stewards reaffirm that a petition to review the final classification must concern the classification itself,” the stewards’ announcement stated. “It is not possible to exercise the right of review on the final classification to question decisions taken prior to it. This also applies to incidents for which no ruling was made during an event.”

Despite dismissing the case, the stewards noted that the fact there was evidence of so many potential unpunished breaches at Turn 6 highlights the need for the FIA to make improvements, requesting better solutions are found by the start of the 2024 season.

“Given that, notwithstanding the formal outcome of this decision, the stewards have seen individual pieces of evidence that show what appear to be potential track limit breaches at the apex of Turn 6, they find their inability to properly enforce the current standard for track limits for all competitors completely unsatisfactory and therefore strongly recommend to all concerned that a solution to prevent further reoccurrences of this widespread problem be rapidly deployed.”

Both Haas and Aston cars to start USGP from pit lane

Haas and Aston Martin have confirmed both teams will start both cars from the pit lane for today’s United States Grand Prix in order to change setups. Both teams have brought upgrade packages to Circuit of The Americas but Aston Martin’s Fernando …

Haas and Aston Martin have confirmed both teams will start both cars from the pit lane for today’s United States Grand Prix in order to change setups.

Both teams have brought upgrade packages to Circuit of The Americas but Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were eliminated in Q1 on Friday. While Haas fared better, with Kevin Magnussen qualifying 14th and Nico Hulkenberg 16th, both drivers struggled in race trim and slipped backwards in the sprint on Saturday.

Now with a picture of how the heavily updated Haas is behaving, the team has decided to make significant setup changes to both cars to learn more about the developments across a full race distance, rather than repeat Saturday’s issues.

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The same decision has been taken by Aston Martin, but the team will split approaches with Alonso reverting to the Qatar specification of car and Stroll staying with the new spec but making setup changes to ensure both are similarly configured for comparison.

Deputy technical director Eric Blandin says some initial simulation errors were to blame for the team struggling from the start of the weekend.

“In FP1 we [were hindered] because of a mistake on the sim,” Blandin said. “We put too much blanking on the front brakes so they effectively caught fire, that’s why we couldn’t run more than two laps with Lance in the morning and that really put us in the back foot for the whole weekend.

“In FP1 we couldn’t really optimize the setup of the car with the new package. As a consequence, I think the car is far from its optimum setup [for the race] with the new package.

“So we will start both cars from the pit lane, and we are effectively changing the setup. We think there is a lot more performance to come from the car, but we took the pragmatic approach to start both cars with, one with the Qatar spec, and one with the new package.”

The result is Daniel Ricciardo will be promoted to 14th on the grid ahead of Williams pair Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant in 15th and 16th respectively.

Aston Martin, Haas to both start from pitlane for 2023 United States Grand Prix

Four cars will be off the grid and starting from the pit lane during Sunday’s race.

The starting grid for the United States Grand Prix may feel a little empty on Sunday.

F1 journalist Chris Medland confirmed before the race that two teams — Aston Martin and Haas — will start from the pitlane in Austin. Medland reported that Haas is seeking to get a better setup after gathering data from Saturday’s sprint race and that Aston Martin looks to test a new upgrade spec, with driver Lance Stroll staying on the upgraded car and Fernando Alonso reverting back to older spec for the race.

On an ordinary race weekend, it’s unlikely these two teams would have taken drastic measures to test out their cars. Sprint race weekends, however, give teams an extra day of racing to monitor data like tire wear and race pace, so it’s likely that both these teams were unsatisfied with their race data and are using this grand prix as a means to collect it better regardless of where they finish.

Due to this change, AlphaTauri’s Daniel Ricciardo moves up to 14th place, Williams’ Alex Albon slots up to 15th and his teammate Logan Sargeant will be at the tail end of the grid in 16th. Magnussen and Hulkenberg will be first in the pit lane, while Alonso and Stroll will follow right behind them.

The United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas will take place at 3 p.m. EST.

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Haas to introduce new car concept at USGP

Haas is planning to change the concept of its car at the United States Grand Prix next month as it looks to turnaround its frustrating race pace form. Qualifying has often seen Haas enjoying competitive sessions in the midfield, with Nico Hulkenberg …

Haas is planning to change the concept of its car at the United States Grand Prix next month as it looks to turnaround its frustrating race pace form.

Qualifying has often seen Haas enjoying competitive sessions in the midfield, with Nico Hulkenberg making multiple Q3 appearances this season. But the team has not scored a point since Kevin Magnussen’s 10th place in Miami, and team principal Guenther Steiner says the decision has been made to follow the now widely adopted Red Bull design direction, which will result in the car changing “quite a bit,”

“The concept of the car will change, going in that direction,” Steiner said. “You know you’re limited with the chassis and a few other things, but we’re trying to go to that common downwash shape like everybody else has got.

“The radiators and stuff like this, we cannot change them now — just haven’t got time. Your chassis you can change, but it wouldn’t work out. I don’t think it’s down to Ferrari — their electronic boxes are there, but I wouldn’t blame Ferrari for that one.

“Some of the stuff obviously we need to go close to them (Red Bull) — we could have put it somewhere else if we wanted, but we put it very similar. That concept we are running now asked for the side impact structure to be where it is. I think we got out whatever we could to go to a downwash options — we cannot push it any further.”

Steiner says the decision to make the change was made in July, and driven by the fact the team was struggling to find other gains with its existing car.

“That was our biggest problem with the concept we have now: we couldn’t find any more performance. We developed the whole year and there was nothing there anymore and at some stage you need to decide, ‘We need to do something different here, we cannot keep banging our head against the wall.’

“McLaren changed the system like this and they found something. At some stage you need to say, ‘Hey, we need to change concept, we need to face reality.’”

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The new car won’t be ready until the USGP at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas in October, but Steiner says that the information Haas will get can still then inform next year’s design.

“We’ll always be careful and we cannot be sure as our development time was not long, but you have to take risks,” he said. “Looking to ’24, that is worthwhile to take a risk, and say, ‘Hey, we should have kept it in the wind tunnel to develop it’ (but) let’s do it, find out what it gives, and then at least next year we’re in a better place.”

Haas F1 planning big upgrade for United States Grand Prix

The American team is hoping for a big improvement in their home grand prix.

Haas’ Formula 1 has suffered some notable problems across the 2023 season, but they may be taking a big step to fix them soon.

According to German outlet AMuS, Haas is looking to bring some big upgrades to the American Grand Prix in Austin next month. The upgrades have reportedly been in the works for around two months now and are set to debut at Haas’ home grand prix.

Haas’ biggest problem so far in 2023 has been tire degradation, which has forced them to pit too many times over race length on Sundays. In Monza, the team had to pit twice when other teams were on one-stop strategies due to the severity of their tire wear, causing drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen to finish in 17th and 18th place, respectively.

Haas’ F1 car, the VF-23, was designed with big inspiration from Ferrari, who the team has also bought parts from in the past. Ferrari’s current challenger also suffers tire wear, so the team will have to look for their own solution to the problem when 2024 rolls around — this new upgrade should help with that process.

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Haas F1 re-signs Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg

The American F1 team is looking to continue fielding an experienced driver pair for 2024.

Haas has its driver lineup for the 2024 season locked in.

There will be no changes for the American team in 2024, as the team announced Thursday it had re-signed current drivers [autotag]Nico Hulkenberg[/autotag] and [autotag]Kevin Magnussen[/autotag] to the team for the next season. As of now, it seems that the two have been renewed for just the 2024 season.

Hulkenberg and Magnussen both have experience in Formula 1, having both started a combined 346 races. As it stands, Hulkenberg sits in 14th place with nine points in the World Drivers Championship while Magnussen is in 18th with two points. Hulkenberg has Haas’ best result of the year, a 7th-place finish in the Australian Grand Prix.

Team principal Guenther Steiner told Formula1.com that the team currently has an “extremely solid driver pairing” and that the experience that the two bring to the team is invaluable. Here’s what he had to say about renewing the two drivers:

“Kevin is obviously a very well-known quantity to us, and I’m delighted he’ll return for what will be his seventh season in Haas colours. With 113 starts for our team alone, we know where his strengths lie and his knowledge and experience of our organisation pairs very well with that too.

On the other side of the garage, Nico’s simply slotted in without fuss or fanfare and proved himself to be a valuable member of the team. He’s approaching 200 starts in Formula 1 and we’re very happy to be the beneficiary of that experience behind the wheel.”

The two will attempt to take Haas to greater heights in 2024. The team is currently eighth in the constructors championship with 11 points, so both Hulkenberg and Magnussen will hope they signed up for a more competitive car in the future.

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Magnussen never felt Haas future was in doubt

Kevin Magnussen says he didn’t fear for his future at Haas thanks to team principal Guenther Steiner’s honesty, following the announcement of a contract extension at the Dutch Grand Prix. Haas announced Thursday it has opted to retain its current …

Kevin Magnussen says he didn’t fear for his future at Haas thanks to team principal Guenther Steiner’s honesty, following the announcement of a contract extension at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Haas announced Thursday it has opted to retain its current lineup of Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg into 2024, activating clauses in both drivers’ contracts to secure their services for a further season. Magnussen has been outqualified by Hulkenberg on nine occasions in 12 races so far this year, but despite only having two points compared to his team-mate’s nine, he was always confident he’d be staying.

“Not really (concerned), I know what I’m dealing with,” Magnussen said. “I’m old enough now and experienced enough to know where I’m at and what’s going on. The risks involved in this I’m aware of, and I’ve been through most of it at least. So with experience comes an ability to stay calm and you don’t get affected so much by different things that maybe in the past used to affect me more.

“I always want to do a better job no matter what. There’s always stuff that I feel I can improve, and this year I don’t think I as a driver am the sole reason we haven’t scored as many points as we wanted to. I think we all realize the car isn’t as strong as we’d hoped it would be, and I think a big strength in the team is that we’ve got two mature and patient drivers who are not patient enough to wait around for years to get a good car.

“We want to improve and we want to drive the team forward but we’re also experienced enough to be able to stay calm and stay positive and stay constructive in the critique that we’re giving to the team.”

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Magnussen says Steiner’s approach helped him feel secure about this future, given how blunt the Haas team principal can be.

“Guenther’s always very open, very honest, you feel some sort of security with him always … Honesty is a security, even though he tells you that you’re a d•••head and that you can eff off… So I think that’s something I appreciate a lot — not being called a d•••head of course! Just the fact that he’s so honest and you can trust him, and I find that a very good quality in him.

“Guenther’s been quite open about his thinking. But of course I know Formula 1, nothing’s certain until you have it on paper — and not even then sometimes! It’s nice, basically before the summer break I knew, so it’s not a surprise.”

Steiner says he didn’t approach any other drivers, because he feels Haas could not secure a better lineup than it currently has.

“It was pretty straightforward — for a few months I was saying I think we’re pretty good, that’s what I meant,” Steiner said. “Nico, at the start of the year we didn’t do a two-year contract because we didn’t know how he comes back. But he came back very strong.

“Kevin, he would tell you himself he’s not happy with his performance in qualifying at the moment, but he’s just struggled with the consistency of the car. He doesn’t know what it will do corner to corner.

“I think we have got the best driver pairing we can get at the moment with our financials and with our attractiveness of car. I never actually spoke to anyone else.”

Haas retains Hulkenberg and Magnussen for 2024

Haas has announced an unchanged driver lineup of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen for the 2024 season. Hulkenberg has impressed in his first year back in Formula 1 since 2019, scoring nine points and making six appearances in Q3 from the first 12 …

Haas has announced an unchanged driver lineup of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen for the 2024 season.

Hulkenberg has impressed in his first year back in Formula 1 since 2019, scoring nine points and making six appearances in Q3 from the first 12 races. Magnussen returned to the team in 2022 after himself spending a year away from F1, and with an experienced lineup Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has confirmed continuity heading into next season.

“I think it’s safe to say that we’ve had an extremely solid driver pairing this season in Formula 1 and ultimately there was no reason to look to change that moving forward,” Steiner said. “Kevin is obviously a very well-known quantity to us, and I’m delighted he’ll return for what will be his seventh season in Haas colors. With 113 starts for our team alone, we know where his strengths lie and his knowledge and experience of our organization pairs very well with that too.

“On the other side of the garage, Nico’s simply slotted in without fuss or fanfare and proved himself to be a valuable member of the team. He’s approaching 200 starts in Formula 1 and we’re very happy to be the beneficiary of that experience behind the wheel.”

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Magnussen has only added two points to the Haas total so far this season as the team has struggled in race trim, but Steiner says he’s confident he has the right drivers to help the team improve the car and deliver top-10 results regularly once the machinery allows.

“We’ve had to tackle our issues this season with regards to the VF-23, we don’t hide from that, but we’ve been extremely fortunate to have had two drivers whose feedback is invaluable in assisting our engineering objectives.

“Kevin and Nico jelled well right from the get go and together they’ve both scored points, and in particular, Nico has excelled in qualifying — getting into Q3 on six occasions. Having not raced in Formula 1 full-time since 2019 that shows you just how professional he is and how he’s looked after himself physically.

“Of note is also just how much energy both drivers bring to the table — they’ve been fantastic not only in terms of their engagement within the team, but critically, in our partner activations and fan-facing opportunities. Kevin and Nico are clearly enjoying their time in the sport, they both have mature heads on their shoulders, and they fundamentally understand what it is we’re asking of them. In turn, now it’s down to us as a team to look ahead to 2024 and ensure we have a car that’s capable of scoring points consistently.”

The confirmation of the two Haas drivers leaves Lewis Hamilton, Zhou Guanyu and Logan Sargeant — along with the AlphaTauri pair of Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo — without confirmed extensions for 2024.