General consensus pegged Haas as the team destined to finish last in this year’s Constructors’ Championship, but the presumed 2024 Formula 1 backmarkers have thus far put in one of its best campaigns yet.
Heck, even new Team Principal Ayao Komatsu argued that the team would start this year on the back foot, saying ahead of the season opener in Bahrain that: “The ’24 car is a clear step. But whether it is good enough against the competition to start off with? I don’t believe so, because we started so late.”
Despite 2023 being a year plagued by tyre wear issues that rendered Sundays almost pointless for Haas, 2024 has been a different story entirely, despite Komatsu’s earlier reservations.
After logging substantial miles during testing, Haas did not start as the slowest team on the grid, instead, the team picked up 12th and 16th courtesy of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg respectively.
Since then, Hulkenberg has gone on to secure a further five Q3 appearances to go with his appearance in the top-10 shootout at Bahrain.
Even more impressive was Haas scoring an impressive double points finish at the Red Bull Ring, backed up by Hulkenberg finishing sixth at Silverstone.
This has contributed to Haas amassing 27 points after 14 rounds of the season to sit seventh in the Constructors’ standings and for Hulkenberg to talk up the team’s chances to continually fight in F1’s midfield.
“The update really did something to the car, and I genuinely think we’re in the fight for the fifth fastest team now,” the German said after his back-to-back sixth-place finishes at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone.
“Sometimes Aston [Martin], sometimes Alpine, sometimes some others maybe, but I think we’re there, we’ve been pretty consistent this season and I think we can hang on to that.”
With Magnussen exclaiming that for the first time in the team’s history, its upgrades are working as desired, Haas looks to be genuinely in the fight to finish higher than its current standing of seventh in the Constructors’ table once the season resumes at Zandvoort.
“I think considering the size of our team, all the limitations we have, I’m very, very happy that [with] the strength and weakness of the car,” Komatsu said amid Haas’ ongoing resurgence in 2024.
Considering the American squad scored just 12 points throughout the entirety of last year’s campaign, 2024 can already be marked as a definitive success for the smallest team on the F1 grid.
