Having shown renderings of the VF-24 during their official February launch, Haas took the covers off the genuine 2024 car in the build-up to the start of pre-season testing in Bahrain.
Following on from last year’s disappointing P10 in the Constructors’ Championship with Haas failing to score a single point with their much-awaited B-spec car, the team has new leadership this year with Guenther Steiner out and Ayao Komatsu in.
The former tech man, who has been with the team since day one, has been charged with leading Haas back to respectability, starting with the VF-24.
“The short-term objective really is to make incremental improvements,” said the new team boss. “I believe we’ve got good ingredients and we’ve got good people in the team, but we’ve really got to focus on the team being as one to make those improvements.
“Long-term obviously comes as a result of that, so for instance, our first ‘medium-term’ goal is to upgrade to a car that works, and that has happened before so I believe we can do it.”
Haas have retained their experienced line-up of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen for a second season, the team-mates taking the revealing the VF-24 in the Sakhir paddock on Wednesday morning.
— Giuliano Duchessa (@GiulyDuchessa) February 21, 2024
Magnussen put the car through its paces on Tuesday for a filming day with Hulkenberg having already run the car at the Silverstone circuit the previous week.
— MoneyGram Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team)
Although Nico Hulkenberg is hoping for more performance from this year’s VF-24, the German concedes they’re in the “dark” as to its true pace but will know a bit more after Wednesday’s opening day of testing.
“Hopefully, the car will be a bit better with the limitations that we found last year. You naturally want to do better than the previous year, that’s normal.
“We did have a difficult year last year, so we definitely want to improve – especially the race weakness we had last year – that was something we need to and want to get on top of.
“I’ve seen the new car, it does look better, it is an evolution.
“We managed to clean up some things but at this point of the year, like every year, you’re a bit in the dark as to where you are and where you’re going to rank, so we just need to keep our heads down, keep working hard, and stay focused.”
Haas have finished in the bottom three of the F1 standings every year since its best finish of fifth in 2018, which included a point-less season in 2021.
0 comments
