New Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu admits he has low expectations for the performance of the team’s new car in 2024.
Komatsu took charge of Haas after the departure of long time team principal Guenther Steiner early last month.
The team finished tenth and last in the constructors’ championship last season following difficulties with tyre wear across 2024. Haas have retained their driver line-up for the new season with Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg racing together for a second season.
Despite the frustration of team owner Gene Haas with his team’s performance in recent years, Komatsu says he does not expect a leap forward up the grid for his team entering the new season.
“Out of the gates in Bahrain I still think we’re going to be towards the back of the grid, if not last,” he admitted.
“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. It really diverted resources, 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.”
After the team introduced a major upgrade to their 2023 car in the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas in late October last year, Komatsu says the new VF-24 has used that upgrade package as a base.
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“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[iator]-duct arrangement and cooling arrangement, we couldn’t do the full-blown VF-24-type-concept,” he explained. “I knew exactly where we were going for this year, but everyone saw a preview in Austin.”
Having been in the team principal role for a matter of weeks, Komatsu admits the timing of his move was “not ideal” for the team.
“It has impacted things,” he said, “as it was announced on January 10, and we’re running our car for the first time on February 11 – that’s a pretty short timeframe.
“However, in terms of car build and preparation for the test, it wasn’t a problem operationally. It wasn’t just my role, we had a technical director leave as well, so there were two significant vacancies to fill. We formalised and communicated…
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