{"id":30947,"date":"2025-02-25T12:45:24","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T17:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=30947"},"modified":"2025-02-25T12:45:24","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T17:45:24","slug":"haas-pleased-with-winter-progress-aim-to-widen-operating-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/25\/haas-pleased-with-winter-progress-aim-to-widen-operating-window\/","title":{"rendered":"Haas pleased with winter progress, aim to widen operating window"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/02\/f1-haas-profitable-reach-budget-cap-for-the-first-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Haas<\/a> were one of the positive surprises from the 2024 campaign, securing their best Championship finish since 2018. A series of changes implemented by Team Principal Ayao Komatsu had a profound impact on their performance and mid-season development.<\/p>\n<p>Because of this, there an element of enthusiasm surrounding the American team heading into the new season<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the challenge for Haas is to build upon their momentum. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/01\/29\/komatsu-haas-performance-not-sustainable-without-more-staff\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Komatsu has argued that a further increase in the team&#8217;s resources<\/a> are essential to make further progress in the medium and long-term.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding this season, Haas are already showing conviction and confidence in their development approach.<\/p>\n<h2>Why Haas are taking their own path<\/h2>\n<p>As a team with fewer resources at their disposal than anyone else in F1, Haas have benefited greatly from their partnership with Ferrari.<\/p>\n<p>Fred Vasseur&#8217;s team have been integral for Haas since joining the grid, both in terms of sharing certain infrastructure and providing them with certain components.<\/p>\n<p>However, the lack of development facilities and capabilities at Haas were historically a limiting factor in their own potential.<\/p>\n<p>Things are slowly changing, with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/12\/12\/haas-on-the-edge-due-to-low-number-of-staff-komatsu\/\" target=\"_self\">Komatsu implementing new procedures<\/a> to improve communication and enhance efficiency. Despite the urgent need for more personnel, this is already generating positive results.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps most notably, the US outfit have chosen to retain the same front suspension as last season &#8211; opting against the new specification that Ferrari are bringing to the SF-25.<\/p>\n<p>Haas believe they have a strong enough understanding of last year&#8217;s package to find performance gains elsewhere in the car.<\/p>\n<p>This is also a pragmatic choice, dictated by the need to balance their efforts between 2025 and the 2026 cars.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking ahead of pre-season testing, Haas&#8217; Technical Director has explained the approach that was pursued over winter:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Our focus was on the weaknesses identified in the VF-24,&#8221; <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/it.motorsport.com\/f1\/news\/f1-haas-grande-fiducia-sulla-vf-25-ci-aspettiamo-un-salto-importante\/10698031\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said Davide Paganelli.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;With the help of the performance team, we tried to work on the whole car as a package to solve the problem<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;In parallel, every year we try to note a point or a quality of the car that we can improve. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Another important fact that we know, is that last year the car had some specific limitations and we tried to work in that area.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"PNCY5RJ2SOB1WYNHhUTOXg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2200373676\" 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:'PNCY5RJ2SOB1WYNHhUTOXg',sig:'5c59jZ6HACnLrof6TMaqlRzJR7qg8EAV2kJvTRoXuTA=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2200373676',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>A chance for Haas to consolidate<\/h4>\n<p>Like most teams, Haas understand the importance of being on the front-foot when the 2026 regulations come into place.<\/p>\n<p>As opposed to front-running teams like Red Bull or Ferrari, prioritising the new generation of cars is a far more straightforward decision.<\/p>\n<p>Having said that, last year was only the second time Haas finished above 8th in the standings in their F1 history.<\/p>\n<p>They have no intention of throwing this season away, and are taking measures to establish themselves in the midfield:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We have worked a lot on the rear of the car, especially the rear wing. I think we have done a very good job for 2025. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We think the package we have designed is really good in terms of development.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Obviously we need to verify that the numbers are what we expect. If we can see on the track what we think we will see in the wind tunnel, I think we can have a huge boost from the first race.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Haas were one of the positive surprises from the 2024 campaign, securing their best Championship finish since 2018. A series of changes implemented by Team Principal Ayao Komatsu had a profound impact on their performance and mid-season development. Because of this, there an element of enthusiasm surrounding the American team heading into the new season [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":30602,"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":[2452,346,2495],"class_list":["post-30947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-haas","tag-vf-25"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30947","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=30947"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30963,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30947\/revisions\/30963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}