Haas has committed to a “huge” internal restructuring in the build-up to the 2025 Formula 1 season as the team strives to become a sharper operation trackside.
As was suspected during the post-season Abu Dhabi test last month, Laura Mueller will be the race engineer to Esteban Ocon, who has switched to the team from Alpine.
Mueller has been with Haas across her entire time in F1, beginning as a Simulator Engineer, and she will become the first female race engineer the sport has had.
Alongside Mueller, Ronan O’Hare has also been promoted from his past role as a Performance Engineer and he will be guiding Oliver Bearman through his rookie season.
The move comes amid the news that Gary Gannon has departed to take up a role at Aston Martin, while Mark Slade also elected to leave once the previous campaign ended.
Haas boss Ayao Komatsu revealed it considered external candidates, but gardening leave contributed to the team going with suitable in-house names instead.
“It’s just pros and cons,” Komatsu told Autosport. “Because outside people have got long notice periods as well.
“It’s just everything. If there is somebody where it’s like, ‘wow, this guy is a perfect fit and we should wait for 12 months or whatever’ then it’s fine.
“But it had to be clearly better than either Laura or Ronan. Because if the external candidate I can see pros and cons, ok they have less experience but in terms of potential if I think in a year’s time they can be almost the same or even better, then I’d rather invest internally.”
Meanwhile, Pete Crolla exited his long-time role as Team Manager, but Haas has replaced his duties with Mark Lowe under the new title of Sporting Director at the side.
Haas will now also have someone operating as Head of Race Strategy with Carine Cridelich, who will start the role on March 1 once her spell with Racing Bulls concludes.
Francesco Nenci, who had stints at Sauber and Marussia, is now Chief Race Engineer, the role Komatsu held prior to replacing Guenther Steiner in charge 12 months ago.
However, the technical cohort hasn’t been altered as Andrea De Zordo continues to lead the team’s work on the VF-25 and the upcoming rule change as Technical Director.
“Our technical team – the factory-based technical team – has been really stable,” Komatsu explained.
“What’s been changed is the trackside team. It’s a huge change, but I felt that was one of the weakest areas last year.”
Haas aiming to avoid squandered points repeat
Haas sustained its most productive season since 2018 under Komatsu, but it missed out on sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship to a resurgent Alpine team.
Komatsu believes that the Kannapolis-based squad’s eventual seven-point deficit to Alpine came down to squandered opportunities rather than car performance.
“The more and more the car became competitive, that exposed it more,” he detailed.
“We left too many points on the table from the trackside operations.
“So, we really needed to step up on that one.”
“Just so many times under pressure we didn’t seem to function as well as we should,” he added.
“But, again, it’s not just about the people but in terms of the amount of training we can give etc.”
How Haas’ TPC scheme will aid transition
Haas now having a Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) scheme thanks to the alliance with Toyota will help with that as it can now conduct running in-season with past cars.
The American outfit capitalised on this last weekend as both Bearman and Ocon, alongside Toyota-backed driver Ritomo Miyata, turned laps in the VF-23 at Jerez.
Komatsu expressed the track time was “so important” amid the recent changes, highlighting that Haas had been “just a race team” since the squad’s inception in 2014.
“But now we have those [private tests], and also capabilities to simulate certain scenarios now,” he acknowledged.
“We have a lot more of that before the season starts. We will be better prepared”.
READ MORE – Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon confirmed for inaugural Haas TPC run
