Haas Formula 1 boss Ayao Komatsu stresses that the team’s “primary objective” in the remaining six race weekends is to outscore championship rivals RB and Williams and claim sixth place in the World Championship.
An example of that focus was seen in Singapore, where Haas didn’t react to Fernando Alonso pitting while the Spaniard was battling with Nico Hulkenberg.
By staying out Hulkenberg lost an overall position to the Aston Martin driver. However he also ensured that he ultimately finished in a safe ninth place, while Franco Colapinto and Yuki Tsunoda were out of the points in 11th and 12th respectively.
The result meant that Haas cut the gap to sixth-placed RB from five to three points, while extending its advantage over Williams to 15 after the Grove team had a big score at the previous race in Baku.
“Just to avoid any confusion or unnecessary discussion in real time we just said to ourselves our race is against RB and Williams,” Komatsu told formu1a.uno.
“We’ve got to take points away from RB. That’s the primary aim. And secondary is points away from Williams.
“So we thought, are we racing again Alonso? If he tries to undercut us, are we going to do it? Our philosophy was, no. It was good communication and alignment.
“The thing is because of the safety car risk, if we tried to cover Alonso, pit early, and then two laps later the safety car comes, Williams can take points away from us. That was the worst scenario.
“The situation was made simpler by Albon and Tsunoda being out of the equation very early on, so were we only looking at Colapinto.” said Haas Team Principal
“We knew that Alonso was pitting. And we knew that if we pit now, he’s going come in between Stroll and Gasly, we’re going to be the same. Do we want to do that? We could have done it, but then again, there’s a safety car risk in Singapore.
“If it was a more normal circuit of course we would have done it. Nothing happened, but in previous years it’s been 100% safety car at some point. So it’s just how to manage that risk, and what’s our primary objective is.
“By not fighting Alonso, we lost two points, yes it’s true. But at least we just made the alignment.”
Komatsu stressed that Haas cannot take anything for granted as a high attrition race could open up the points position for any of the teams outside the big four.
“The thing is you only have to look at the Baku race, where Williams scored 10 points,” said Komatsu.
“And we scored 12 points in Austria. So any of us can score 10-12 points if something happens in front. So for Williams to be 13 points behind us is not comfortable. And they’re quick.
“We cut the gap to RB, we extended the gap to Williams. So now with six races to go we are three points behind RB, 15, ahead of the Williams. So again, in terms of primary objective, that’s achieved.”
