HAAS
Despite F1 portraying itself as in perpetual crisis and opening itself up to ridicule over late regulation changes and a lack of consensus between the teams, a new kid has turned up for the first day of school. Gene Haas sees F1 as the platform to promote his machine tools globally, and the ability to forge a close partnership with Ferrari has given his team every chance of hitting the ground running.
A new team takes time to click, with every challenge faced for the first time as an entity - even if Haas has recruited a number of personnel with impressive F1 experience - and Haas will need time to reach its full potential. If HRT’s time in F1 offers any lessons then a Dallara chassis is unlikely to be spectacular, but for a first car Haas has done an excellent job.
While it’s important to note that the regulations are different since Virgin, Lotus and Hispania joined the grid in 2010, all three struggled massively early on and just making it to testing was a challenge. Haas was ready from the start of the first test, worked its way through problems, found fixes to continue to gain mileage, and most certainly didn’t look out of place. The midfield may be a stretch early on as it needs to learn quickly, but with a strong driver pairing at least a point this year must be the target.
Silbermann's view
If I have to read the phrase “the first American led Formula One team in 30 years” one more time I might have to shoot someone, but enough about US gun laws… That aside, you’d have to agree Haas has performed better than many expected in winter testing. The pressure of racing for real will be a whole new ball game, it will be no slam dunk, the team might get blindsided occasionally and anyone expecting great results right off the bat, is likely to be disappointed. I have prepared a further 200 American sports idioms for reporting on this team throughout the year. As I’ve said before, I wish them well, but if results come very quickly what does that say about what is meant to be the toughest discipline in motor sport?
