After ending the 2023 campaign last in the constructors’ championship, Komatsu anticipates his squad will retain that position, at least initially.
“We’re going to be towards the back of the grid, if not last,” he warned as Haas revealed renders of its new livery.
Haas enters this year’s championship with a revised concept after hitting a development dead end with its 2023 machine.
That saw a new approach introduced at last year’s United States Grand Prix, though the car’s architecture meant it couldn’t be fully integrated until now.
“We made the upgrade in Austin that was the concept towards this year’s car – but because we had the physical limitation of the side impact structure, rad-duct arrangement, and cooling arrangement, we couldn’t do the full-blown VF-24-type-concept,’ Komatsu explained.
“I knew exactly where we were going for this year, but everyone saw a preview in Austin.”
While it’s hoped that will net improved returns down the track, it’s been a bumpy period to develop the VF-24.
Following the departure of Guenther Steiner, the team’s technical director, Simone Resta, also left.
Komatsu acknowledges that impacted development but claims it was minimised.
“In terms of car build and preparation for the test, it wasn’t a problem operationally,” he remarked.
“The timing of this transition period was not ideal; however, I’ve been very impressed with the maturity of everyone’s reaction.
“Thanks to this, we were able to keep the disruption to the minimum.
“Now we’ve clarified the structure, we should be full steam ahead.”
That new structure has seen the team enter the market seeking a new chief designer after it promoted Andrea De Zordo from that position to technical director.
It has also created the role of performance director, with another internal promotion – Damien Brayshaw – filling that position.
That restructure is hoped to aid the development of the new car and pry it from its expected early-season position at the back of the pack.
“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,” Komatsu reasoned.
“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 analyse 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.”
Pre-season testing begins later this month, with three days of running in Bahrain from February 21-23.
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