{"id":19005,"date":"2024-03-05T06:47:47","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T11:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=19005"},"modified":"2024-03-05T06:59:44","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T11:59:44","slug":"ayao-komatsu-haas-can-fight-for-points-after-fixing-achilles-heel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/05\/ayao-komatsu-haas-can-fight-for-points-after-fixing-achilles-heel\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayao Komatsu: Haas can fight for points after fixing Achilles heel"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu is satisfied that his team can compete for points in the 2024 F1 season.<\/h3>\n<p>When Haas revealed the VF-24 in pre-season, it was clear their 2024 package was a continuation of last year&#8217;s package. Ayao Komatsu and his team were largely building un a pre-existing platform.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst this is not necessarily a negative, the American squad finished the 2023 campaign in poor fashion.<\/p>\n<p>They ended up last in the standings, unable to resolve their fundamental tyre issues.<\/p>\n<p>Considering that Gene Haas made clear over winter that his spending philosophy will not change, there was very little optimism surrounding the team.<\/p>\n<p>However, the opening round of 2024 was very encouraging for Haas F1.<\/p>\n<p>Nico Hulkenberg once again qualified in the top 10, serving yet another reminder of his calibre as a driver.<\/p>\n<p>For a team like Haas, though, there was an acute awareness that celebrating too quickly would be a mistake.<\/p>\n<p>One-lap performance was never an issue last season. It was over a race distance that <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/02\/why-haas-now-have-the-attention-of-formula-1s-midfield\/\" target=\"_self\">the VF-24 could show its true colours.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"hfTomAsqRq5fhHaGWSl0XA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2039041015\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'hfTomAsqRq5fhHaGWSl0XA',sig:'X0mKiDR03QLpUyp-ee5fUOpB7WxZbCQxQqPjjhGNRnE=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2039041015',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Despite early contact for Nico Hulkenberg into turn 1, the race was very productive for the team.<\/p>\n<p>The German driver demonstrated impressive performance and tyre management in Sakhir. For Ayao Komatsu&#8217;s engineers, that second component is critical.<\/p>\n<p>Were it not for F1&#8217;s record levels of reliability, Haas could have picked up the pieces and taken points.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, Hulkenberg&#8217;s average race pace was enough for the top-10.<\/p>\n<p>Without his first lap contact, it is plausible the German could have finished ahead of Lance Stroll.<\/p>\n<p>Irrespective of this, team principal Komatsu sees many positives to take:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Kevin\u2019s race showed that we can fight this year. We don\u2019t have the best degradation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But at least in the midfield, we can fight for the points.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We didn\u2019t do a perfect strategy but even then, Kevin was fighting in the midfield until the last moments. which was a huge positive.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know the margin of error is very, very small. So we need to step-up on that side as well.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are huge positives to take from this weekend.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a id=\"FTeJyQmhQDROcE_I_61qKg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2031768763\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'FTeJyQmhQDROcE_I_61qKg',sig:'XbNejtUm0bACMHRUh-XPe63VFM46Px3778hIKwS64cA=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2031768763',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Something which remains to be seen is whether Haas can meaningfully develop their car mid-season.<\/p>\n<p>There is overwhelming evidence to suggest the VF-24 could fail to keep up with its <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/05\/zhou-guanyu-boosts-contract-hopes-with-strong-bahrain-drive\/\" target=\"_self\">midfield rivals<\/a> as 2024 progresses.<\/p>\n<p>To mitigate this, Hulkenberg and Magnussen must optimise the package at their disposal in the early rounds.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, Komatsu must prove that &#8211; even with limited resources &#8211; Haas is capable of bringing updates and finding more performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu is satisfied that his team can compete for points in the 2024 F1 season. When Haas revealed the VF-24 in pre-season, it was clear their 2024 package was a continuation of last year&#8217;s package. Ayao Komatsu and his team were largely building un a pre-existing platform. Whilst this is not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":19011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,2224,68,2238,23,301],"class_list":["post-19005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-ayao-komatsu","tag-f1","tag-f1-2024","tag-formula-1","tag-haas-f1-team"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}