The Haas F1 team was the first to unveil the 2024 car, releasing at least some computer-generated images of it. Mark Hughes, an expert on the championship’s official website, took a closer look and shared his conclusions.
It appears the VF-24 is simply an evolution of the redesigned VF-23 chassis unveiled in Austin last year. The trend continues towards taller sidepods at the front, which also have heavier shapes, but this was generally the case across all teams last year.
But Haas goes one step further by taking advantage of the ability to position the radiators higher along the car’s centerline, with the safety structures that absorb energy in side impacts lower.
This made it possible to give such “sculptural” shapes to the front of the side pontoons – the idea is to achieve a better separation of the air flow, one part of which is directed around the air intakes of the radiator and the other along the edges of the bottom. This also contributes to the formation of vortices during the air flow around the lower part of the side pontoons.
The stronger these vortices, the more effectively the bottom edges work, improving the quality of the flow between the rear wheels and the diffuser. Which in turn increases the downforce generated by the bottom of the rear end.
The change in the location of the radiators is also indicated by the increased volume of the upper air intake on the engine compartment housing.
In fact, these changes are very similar to those introduced by McLaren at the Austrian round last season, and in Singapore the British team’s lead was followed by Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri and Alpine. The Haas VF-24 is similar in appearance to what other teams’ cars looked like at the end of 2023, while the sidepods are less reminiscent of similar elements on last year’s Ferrari SF-23.
The suspension for the American team, as well as the power plants and gearboxes, are supplied by Ferrari. The suspension design remains the same: it is based on pushers at the front and rods at the rear. This is a sign that the Scuderia is sticking to the same configuration – unlike Red Bull and McLaren, whose cars used rods at the front and pushrods at the rear last year.
Ayo Komatsu, the new team manager, is positive on the one hand, but on the other hand realistically imagines what awaits Haas at the start of the season: “I knew exactly in which direction we would be working in 2024, and everyone was able to get their first glimpse in Austin…
The car we presented will not be particularly fast in Bahrain, but the reason is not that our staff does not have sufficient knowledge, but that we started the season preparations late and then interrupted them for two months to make updates for Austin to prepare.
This diverted resources, we lost time, but the team, now working in the wind tunnel, already sees opportunities to win back. This is positive and shows that we are on the right track.”
You can also add the opinion of Gary Anderson, a former race car designer and now technical expert for The Race: “Gene Haas, the team owner, demands better results but has no intention of increasing his budget, but these two things are Diametric opposite. In general, achieving such results will be extremely difficult unless management, led by Günter Steiner and Simone Resta, now dismissed from the team, was indeed the main factor hindering Haas’ technical progress.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
