{"id":35818,"date":"2025-07-11T04:37:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T08:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=35818"},"modified":"2025-07-11T04:37:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T08:37:39","slug":"haas-confident-in-vf-25-despite-fall-in-the-standings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/07\/11\/haas-confident-in-vf-25-despite-fall-in-the-standings\/","title":{"rendered":"Haas Confident in VF-25 Despite Fall in the Standings"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most of the season, Haas have occupied 6th place in the standings – within touching distance of Williams for the unofficial ‘best of the rest’ title. After scoring just 9 points in the last 8 races, however, Haas now find themselves 9th in the Championship – with only Alpine<\/a> further behind.<\/p>\n

Conscious of this decline, team principal Ayao Komatsu calls on his personnel to stop making unforced errors.<\/p>\n

Haas fail to capitalise on British GP opportunity<\/h2>\n

Of all the team in the midfield, Haas are arguably the most difficult to assess in 2025.<\/p>\n

On paper, the American squad’s trajectory this year is relatively standard. Aside from a nightmare season opener in Australia, they have consistently battled for points.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Oliver Bearman at Silverstone. (Photo by Glenn Dunbar\/LAT Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Upgrades to the VF-25 have generally worked as expected, allowing Haas to keep up in F1’s<\/a> development race.<\/p>\n

A deeper analysis, however, shows that Ayao Komatu’s campaign has been extremely volatile.<\/p>\n

Both Esteban Ocon<\/a> and Oliver Bearman have suffered many Q1 exits, though paradoxically, rarely at the same time.<\/p>\n

It is not uncommon for one Haas to start in the top 10, whilst the other qualifies at the back of the field.<\/p>\n

The British GP was no exception, with Bearman making it into Q3 whilst Ocon could only manage 15th.<\/p>\n

There are many other example of this, such as in Miami, where Ocon qualified 9th – in stark contrast to Bearman’s 20th place result.<\/p>\n

For many reasons, Haas are often forced to pursue audacious strategies on Sundays to compensate for their poor Saturdays.<\/p>\n

Although Haas can be credited for often salvaging results, it is not sustainable to consistently qualify so poorly.<\/p>\n

Komatsu calls on Haas to optimise VF-25’s potential<\/h4>\n

Since taking the helm, Ayao Komatsu’s leadership has seen a fundamental change in the team’s operational efficiency.<\/p>\n

This is evident both on the track and away from it, with Haas now holding their own in the midfield battle.<\/p>\n

Of course, this does not mean there are not vulnerabilities to address.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Lance Stroll and Esteban Ocon at Silverstone Circuit. (Photo by Sam Bagnall\/Sutton Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Upgrades to the VF-25 in Silverstone<\/a> showed promise, namely with Oliver Bearman’s pace on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Haas, contact between their drivers essentially ruined any chances of points – despite the large volume of DNF’s at the British GP.<\/p>\n

Even before then, the team were relying on strategic gambles to put themselves back in contention.<\/p>\n

When reflecting on Haas’ race, Ayao Komatsu was clear and direct in his analysis:<\/p>\n

“I can\u2019t hide away from the fact that we executed a terrible race today, we have to be better.<\/em><\/p>\n

“In terms of machinery, I think we have a good car now and it\u2019s really competitive.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Whether it\u2019s competitive everywhere I don\u2019t know. But in Silverstone with the upgrade \u2013 all credit to the team that made this happen \u2013 we have a strong car, and we\u2019ve proved that.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Today, however, we didn\u2019t do justice to the car or the team, so there\u2019s a lot to learn from as a group.<\/em><\/p>\n

“It\u2019s not just today, as a whole we need to focus on how we get a clean weekend together…<\/em><\/p>\n

“We shouldn\u2019t be starting from P14 and P18 where we\u2019re then trying to force the result.<\/em><\/p>\n

“We need to focus on executing three clean days on a race weekend and getting the result that our car deserves.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The good news for Haas is that, by in large, they should be fighting for points every weekend.<\/p>\n

Still, the midfield has evolved significantly since the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n

Sauber<\/a> and Aston Martin<\/a> have made considerable progress, with Hulkenberg’s podium coming after three consecutive points finishes.<\/p>\n

With VCARB a consistent threat for points, and even Alpine capable of pulling off a surprise, Haas must avoid the missteps of previous events.<\/p>\n

Main photo: Andy Hone\/LAT Images (via Haas media gallery)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most of the season, Haas have occupied 6th place in the standings – within touching distance of Williams for the unofficial ‘best of the rest’ title. After scoring just 9 points in the last 8 races, however, Haas now find themselves 9th in the Championship – with only Alpine further behind. Conscious of this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":35822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[2224,2452,346],"class_list":["post-35818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-ayao-komatsu","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-haas"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35818","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=35818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35823,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35818\/revisions\/35823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}