Komatsu: Recent Haas F1 points haul is “crazy”

Adam Cooper
16/07/2024

Haas boss Ayao Komatsu says the team’s haul of 20 points over the past two races is “crazy” and reflects the fact that the VF-24 has been competitive at most venues.

Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen finished sixth and eighth, respectively, in the Austrian GP, and then with the latest floor upgrade, the German qualified and finished sixth again in the British GP, despite losing some places with a first lap incident.

The team lies seventh in the World Championship, four points shy of RB/VCARB.

“It’s crazy,” Komatsu told this writer. “We scored 20 points in two races, and we’ve now got 27 points, more than double of what we had all last season.

“And we’re only four points behind RB. At some stage when RB was on 30 points, we were on seven points – a 23-point difference, and they were gone. Now suddenly it’s only four points.

“I’d like to think we can go for points at every single race. That was the case before this upgrade, and that definitely is also the case with this upgrade. Although I don’t know how many more upgrades other people will bring, and we’ve got a very different circuit coming up.

“Obviously, Budapest is extra high downforce, Spa is medium downforce, you’ve got Zandvoort high downforce, then Monza low downforce. It’s a mixture of circuits.

“But so far, 12 races, all the circuit ranges we’ve been to, we’re there. And then with the upgrade, I feel we improved a bit.”

Komatsu: Haas were competitive even before Silverstone

Komatsu stressed that the VF-24’s consistently good form has been a strength of the team this year, even before the Silverstone update.

“The Barcelona performance was actually good,” he said. “We only finished P11, but our race pace was very good. It’s just unfortunately, five teams were quicker than us, and everybody finished, but that was positive.

“We finished P11 five times and P12 once. So we were always there. Which is a good sign, even when you can’t score points. Then Spielberg, with the same car, we got a bit lucky. But because we are there all the time, we were there to take it. That lifted the team a lot, which is a great reward for all those races we finished P11.

“And then coming to Silverstone, of course, we knew we were bringing the update. But I just never want to count chickens, if you like, until we prove it because the minute you become complacent, that’s when you drop your ball.

“So I really don’t want to count it until we proved it’s working. I think it’s fair to say it’s working. You can see in Nico’s qualifying performance, you can see in the race.

“I don’t yet know if we delivered 100% of what we should have, or 80%? I don’t know. But regardless, it’s 100% clear we’ve been improving the car, and this is another big step.

“I think this is the first time in Haas history that we are actually improving throughout the season! So that’s amazing. And it gives lots of confidence to the guys that we can do it.”

Komatsu said that Hulkenberg knew as soon as he tried the new floor in FP2 at Silverstone that it represented an improvement.

“We were looking at medium-speed performance. That much has been clear,” he said. “So we tried to improve on that. And then Nico felt it straight away, which was brilliant.

“This is why we put Nico on the baseline in FP1, and the brand-new package with upgrades in FP2, because Nico’s feel is really good, it’s very precise.

“Then when Nico says I felt it straight away, it means something. Data acquisition is one thing, but driver feel – he’s the most expensive sensor you’ve got in your car! So that was amazing.”

Komatsu was relieved that Hulkenberg was able to convert his strong Silverstone grid position into a good result, helped by the right tyre calls in the rain-affected race.

“That’s something I’m very pleased about,” he said. “Qualifying P6 in our car, ahead of both Ferraris and Perez, everything was for us to lose, right? Okay, we lost a couple of positions at the start, but every single call we made was correct.

“That was result of teamwork, that’s getting better as well, and the communication with drivers, getting the drivers more informed about the bigger picture.

“So everything is improving, it’s not just one thing. I’m so pleased that we managed to make all those correct calls with correct timing, and put the right tyres, and then came home in sixth.”

He added: “In qualifying, Nico lost about three-tenths in one corner, so he would have done 26.1s if he put the lap together.

“I think that gap to the pole is probably closest we’ve been for the entire history of Haas F1 team, I don’t think we’ve ever been that close to pole position [in the dry] in terms of lap time delta. So that’s encouraging, closing the gap.”

Komatsu also explained why Magnussen went back to the older floor for qualifying and the race at Silverstone.

“Ollie [Bearman] went off the track in Turn 15 in FP1, that damaged it,” he said. “In terms of our numbers, that wasn’t severe. And then we repaired it as best as we could. So we thought it would be okay.

“But even then, data was still not clear between FP1 and FP2 on Kevin’s car. Kevin was so unhappy with the car, with no confidence in-high speed. On Friday night, you’ve got one chance, so then we said let’s revert the spec. So that was good a good decision, I think.”

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