In addition to unveiling the design and livery of its 2024 F1 car, Haas also announced that it has appointed chief designer Andrea de Zordo as its new technical director.
The Italian replaces Simone Resta who was virtually on loan from Ferrari since 2021, while the US outfit is now recruiting for de Zordo’s replacement as chief designer.
Commenting on de Zordo’s appointment, Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu vaunted the latter’s merits and qualities, and provided insight on the expansion of Haas’ engineering department.
“His communication is good, he’s very engaged and he listens to people, so I’m very happy about that appointment,” he said.
“We are now recruiting for our Chief Designer, but I believe we have good internal candidates, so we’ll look to promote internally.
“Another key position is the Performance Director, this is a position that wasn’t there before, but we’ve created it putting Damien Brayshaw, previously the Head of Vehicle Performance Group, into the role.
“He will oversee and drive the direction for the upgrades together with the aero department and all the other functions that analyze the full-scale car, which is trackside engineering, the Vehicle Performance Group, Tyre Group etc.
“They’re the key changes – we’re getting everyone on board, talking together, and be a part of steering the ship.”
©Haas
Komatsu has warned Haas fans to keep their expectations in check at the start of the season.
“Out of the gates in Bahrain, like I said, I still think we’re going to be towards the back of the grid, if not last,” he said candidly.
The Japanese engineer explained why Haas will likely be on the back foot at the outset.
“The reason our launch-spec car is not going to be quick enough in Bahrain is not because of the quality of the people we have here, but it’s because we started late and then we stopped for two months to do the Austin upgrade,” he explained.
“It really diverted resource, so we lost time there, but the team is finding good gains in the wind tunnel so that’s positive and in terms of characteristics, it’s going in the right direction.
“The focus is to have a good test program for Bahrain so that we come away from the test having quality data for the team to analyze and understand which direction to develop the car.
“This means understanding the strength and weakness of the VF-24 accurately, then put a coherent plan together to produce updates on the car, which hasn’t happened previously.”
Komatsu also said that Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg will both be more “in the loop” regarding Haas’ development in-season programme.
“Drivers will play a stronger role too,” he said. “Last year, in terms of subjective feedback from drivers, their understanding of what the weakness of the car was clear, however, we weren’t then able to reflect that in our car development program.
“With the changes we made in the team, we aim to address this issue with our drivers more in the loop of development paths so that nothing gets lost.
“As engineers we have all the data from many sensors, but the one thing we can’t do is drive the car and feel what’s going on. So, we’ve got to be able to understand and react to drivers’ feedback better.”
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