P1racenews AI automatic summary:
Why Haas will already start F1 2024 on the back foot
The 2024 F1 season brings significant changes for Haas, as team boss Guenther Steiner and technical director Simone Resta have departed. Owner Gene Haas has taken action due to dissatisfaction with the lack of progress and has entrusted new principal Komatsu to implement a full-scale revision of the technical program and adopt a more engineering-focused approach. Despite revealing the renders of Kevin Magnussen’s and Nico Hulkenberg’s VF-24 machine for 2024, Komatsu acknowledges that Haas may face short-term challenges in order to make progress. Haas has struggled to convert qualifying pace into race performance, largely due to tire overheating problems, and a change in car concept last year did not yield significant results. This decision not only hindered their performance but also caused a delay in the development of their 2024 car. Komatsu expects Haas to be towards the back or even last on the grid during the Bahrain Grand Prix, but believes the late changes were necessary to avoid potential issues during pre-season testing. He emphasizes the importance of understanding and upgrading the VF-24 car in order to improve their performance. Alongside technical changes, Haas has reshuffled personnel and streamlined their technical processes in an effort to reverse their previous pattern of starting strong but falling behind in the development race.
