Haas has admitted that the upgrade package brought to last year’s VF-23 challenger in Austin has had an impact on the development of its 2024 Formula 1 car.
The American outfit struggled with poor tyre management last term and continued to slide towards the bottom of the pecking order as the 2023 season materialised.
Haas tried to convert its VF-23 to fit the ‘downwash’ sidepod solution popularised by Red Bull with a seismic upgrade package at the United States Grand Prix in October.
However, not only did this fail to turn the team’s fortunes around and its troubles continued into the closing rounds, but it also interrupted progress on its latest machine.
“The reason our launch-spec car is not going to be quick enough in Bahrain is not because of the quality of the people we have here, but it’s because we started late and then we stopped for two months to do the Austin upgrade,” Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu said.
“It really diverted resource, so we lost time there, but the team is finding good gains in the wind tunnel so that’s positive and in terms of characteristics, it’s going in the right direction.”
The difficulties that the VF-23 upgrade put into the Haas operation were reflected in its inability to attain better results in the denouement of the 2023 campaign
Komatsu, though, has an answer for why the upgrade failed in that regard and positives remain in that he knows where the development of the VF-24 is headed.
“In terms of physical changes, as everyone knows, when we made the upgrade in Austin that was the concept towards this year’s car – but because we had the physical limitation of the side impact structure, rad-duct arrangement, and cooling arrangement, we couldn’t do the full-blown VF-24-type-concept,” Komatsu added on the evolution of the VF-23.
“I knew exactly where we were going for this year, but everyone saw a preview in Austin.
“Again, to understand the problem of the VF-23, creating the updated car in Austin was pretty useful.
“Mainly because when we split the cars and Nico went back to the previous spec while Kevin continued with the new, we could see the performance differences in varying speeds of corner.
“We got a lot of data from that, and that confirmed where we needed to concentrate our development for the VF-24.”
Komatsu, who has replaced Guenther Steiner at the helm, concedes the Austin upgrade was “a big exercise to do” and reiterated that “it did delay our VF-24 development.
“But if we hadn’t done it and then had a huge surprise come pre-season testing, it would’ve hurt us immensely,” he continued.
“It was a difficult balance, and doing the Austin package means the VF-24 launch car may not be as advanced as it could be, but at the same time we have better confidence in what we’re putting out on track now.
“We’re all realistic that our launch car in Bahrain will not necessarily turn heads, but our concentration and focus is to work with the VF-24, understand the car, and then define the correct pathway to upgrade the car.
“During the time it took to make the Austin-spec car, we had to stop resources to the VF-24 for two months, and that’s performance we could’ve found there.”
The new Haas team boss is realistic about his squad’s chances amid the progression that will undoubtedly be occurring up and down the F1 grid with stable rules.
But while he has set expectations for the beginning of the season fairly low, Komatsu believes the knowledge gained in interrupting the development of Haas’ 2024 machine to improve the VF-23 will pay dividends, with upgrades set to arrive in the short term.
“The team is recovering well, but you have to be realistic because our competitors are smart and they’re finding performance as well,” he added.
“We know how much we’ve gained since the end of the 2023 season, but I expect everyone else to be finding at least the same amount of gain.
“At least we should have a better base in the VF-24.
“With a better cohesion within the team to find performance, we can aim to bring upgrades relatively early on in the season.”
