Season results: Haas F1 Team

Haas F1 refused the services of rental drivers, but the result remained the same: for the second time, the team finished last in the Constructors’ Championship, despite a strong driver line-up.

The “franchise” scheme of the strongest teams no longer brings success, which is clear with AlphaTauri, although you can make money from it. But this isn’t just about sports. Customer teams are clearly running out of time. In modern Formula 1, customer teams become outsiders.

Many teams that were previously behind have changed owners, serious business has come, and with it experienced engineers, and with the Dallara chassis there is nothing to count on in Formula 1, even with strong drivers.

With the departure of Mick Schumacher, the sponsors associated with him left the team, but a new title partner emerged: the MoneyGram company. The team was criticized for a long time because of Mick’s retirement, but Nico Hulkenberg, who returned to Formula 1, immediately showed what he was worth.

As often happens, outsiders earn points in the first races of the season, and then the rest join in and there is simply no chance of getting into the top ten.

The most successful for Haas F1 was the Australian Grand Prix, which came third this season. There were several accidents, Sainz was fined – and Hülkenberg did not miss his opportunity.

During the season Haas F1 scored points in only five of the 22 races, and three times it was one point. Better than nothing, but the season was dismal for the team.

Commenting on the results of the season, Ralf Schumacher said that Haas F1 does not match the level of Formula 1 teams. This assessment can be explained by resentment over Mick’s dismissal, but this year it is quite objective.

Last year the team rented an office at the Ferrari base in Maranello, where a new car was developed under the leadership of Simone Li Resta, but hopes did not coincide with reality.

The car looked good in qualifying, but over the course of the course the tires quickly wore out and it lost a lot of speed in traffic, making attacks impossible.

During the race the tires had to be taken care of, so even after successful qualifying the drivers quickly rolled back.

The driving behavior left a lot to be desired; even experienced Niko and Kevin could not get more out of the car. Formula 1 is a competition of designers, and Haas F1 essentially has no designer.

Haas F1 expected a lot from the major update prepared for the ‘home race’ in Austin, but nothing came of it. Hulkenberg even asked for the old chassis to be returned, which he more or less found a way to do.

These new features were supposed to form the basis of the 2024 car, but when they didn’t work, it became unclear what to do next. The crisis is clear, but the way out of it is not.

Niko convincingly defeated his partner, Kevin was inferior in literally everything and sometimes could not find an explanation and refused to be interviewed, but here it is apparently about the characteristics of the car. Due to a lack of finances and the complex logistics at Dallara, the team did not have the opportunity to quickly adapt the car.

Günter Steiner, team manager: “The season has been difficult for us. We started well, but were unable to improve when our opponents took a step forward.

The result is that we have been fighting all season and will work hard in the winter to make the car faster next year. We have everything we need for this: a team that is always ready to race, that wants to succeed, we just need to improve the car’s performance.”

The team extended the contract with its drivers, but at the end of the season Hulkenberg did not hide his disappointment. And his partner Kevin Magnussen was openly sad. For many years he found his way to Formula 1 through the youth series, and now it is clear that the way out of this situation lies only in endurance racing, which is also honorable, but has a slightly different status.

Haas F1 is making optimistic plans for the next season, but the rivals are not standing still and their technical capabilities are certainly no worse. You should expect nothing more from Haas F1 than a battle for 9-10th place. With Gene Haas’ interest in the team fading and funding being cut, it’s become more about survival. Or about selling. But Haas will still negotiate.

At the end of the year, Haas owes 6% of the championship prize fund, around 55 million euros. The champion Red Bull Racing team will receive approximately 128 million euros.