Haas sees itself doubling its stakes in Melbourne on one of its favorite circuits

Few people saw Haas score points regularly this season and even less so early in the calendar. With unsatisfactory winter tests and rather pessimistic media releases from Ayao Komatsu, there was cause for concern. But thanks to a racing strategy collective and at a high top speed of the VF-24, Haas managed to snatch the point of 10th place, in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) through Nico Hulkenberg.

A performance praised by Komatsu, team principal of the American team: “Scoring points in Saudi Arabia was extremely important. I was a bit unhappy after the Bahrain Grand Prix because I felt we could have done better in terms of strategy to give ourselves a better chance. In Jeddah we did it by maximizing the team strategy, with Kevin creating space for Nico.”

First points of 2024 ✅ in the bag. # HaasF1 #SaudiArabianGP pic.twitter.com/jP518zpLuQ

—MoneyGram Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) March 11, 2024

Heading for Australia now, a very different route from Jeddah and Bahrain according to the main Haas team: “I'm looking forward to Melbourne, it's a different type of circuit. The downforce level will be back to the level in Bahrain, but it's a very different circuit to there. Bahrain is more traction oriented while Melbourne is a bit more mixed […] The degradation will not be as low as Jeddah, nor as high as Bahrain, so somewhere in between.” 

In addition, the C5 compound, the softest in the Pirelli range, could complicate things in qualifying for Haas. “This will be the first time this year that we will use the C5 tire compound. Historically we've had trouble getting the tires to work in qualifying, so it's going to be interesting,” admits Ayao Komatsu.

Albert Park, a special circuit for Haas

In recent years, Albert Park has done quite well at Gene Haas's team: P7 last year, P6 in 2019. It's also where it all started for the American team, in 2016. We'll take it from there. remembers, Romain Grosjean had snatched a magnificent 6th place for the first Grand Prix in Haas history.

Melbourne is also the land of Kévin's beginnings Magnussen in F1, with McLaren, 10 years ago now. “It's always special to come back to Melbourne, I have special memories of my first race in Formula 1. Coming back you always have in mind that it was the first race of the season in so many years. years and it's a special feeling », rejoices the person concerned. He had also signed his best career result by climbing to the second step of the podium.

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