The VF-23 struggled all year with tyre overheating that meant good grid positions went to waste as the cars slipped down the order.

Haas has tried to address that inherent trait with the VF-24 and will use this week’s three days of testing at Sakhir to judge if it has been successful rather than trying different set-ups in search of a performance sweet spot.

“It's not really so much comparing the differences across the specs, but if you look at our issue last year, it was clear that on Sunday we just couldn’t manage the tyres for 300 kilometres,” said Komatsu. “So that’s what we’re focused on.

“Our Bahrain test programme is completely focused on generating the relevant data so that our engineers can understand what’s happening to the car and what’s happening to the tyres.

“Then we can decide, if we have good quality data, on the conclusion of how to improve it. Then we decide a different direction on that.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal of Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Haas F1 Team

Komatsu doesn’t expect that the team will make rapid progress relative to rivals, but he is confident in the longer-term picture.