The Zordo: The goal is to be the best in the middle of the pack

At the start of the year, it looked like the reorganization Haas F1 underwent in the off-season would not have a positive effect anytime soon, and Ayo Komatsu, the new head of the American team, frankly admitted at the time that he was not particularly optimistic.

“We will be at the back of the pack, if not the very last,” he said ahead of pre-season testing in Bahrain. But even then, speaking of Haas F1’s new technical director, who replaced Simone Resta, Komatsu insisted: “Andrea de Zordo was a former chief designer and is very well versed in technology. He is good with people, inspiring them and is a good listener, so I am very pleased with his appointment.”

Zordo had worked with Resta for a long time in recent years, including as one of the team specialists who figured out why the series of updates Haas introduced on the American stage were ineffective, which also affected the development of the 2024 car.

But the team has managed to overcome the difficulties that often accompany reforms, and is now seventh in the Constructors’ Championship, despite being last last year. This was made possible in part by the input of the new Technical Director.

“Of course I had to start from scratch, because a lot has changed – both the organization and the way of working,” Zordo said in an interview with Racer. – It was a difficult time, because Ayo and I got new roles, and we had to get used to it. But the advantage is that we have had good relations for a long time, which are still good today. I think we worked well together.

The new appointment came as a complete surprise to me. Of course I was very scared at first, because the changes were very serious. So I weighed everything carefully and although I had my doubts, I accepted the offer.

The first month was very stressful, every morning I woke up with this thought: “I hope I can do it.” But gradually the realization came that I could do it, I started to adapt, I started to feel more and more comfortable working and now I am very happy to be in this position.

Of course it is not easy, the pressure is very high and it is not up to me to judge whether I am doing well or not, but I am doing my best. We have done a lot of work to improve the race results. And I am especially happy that on Sunday we are sometimes faster than in qualifying. This means that we are moving in the right direction.

This was possible thanks to a combination of several factors, because if you miss at least one, nothing happens, even if everything else is fine. Last year we were noticeably inferior to our rivals in all key areas, but when we analyzed everything, we started to reorganize. It was not just about technology or drivers; it was important to change the approach to work.

We are trying to make progress in all areas. The peculiarity of the current regulations is of course that the efficiency of the car depends in principle on the underbody, on the way it interacts with other parts of the chassis. Our focus is mainly on this, but also on many other elements of the machine that need improvement.

My main goal is to make constant progress. I think that this year there are some teams that are underperforming, and we have to keep that in mind if we want to stay at this level next year. Our goal is to be the best team in the middle of the peloton. But for that we have to take another step forward…

Soon we will face a new challenge: the transition to the next generation of machines, and we must now analyze the new technical regulations to understand what opportunities this offers. Personally, I think one of the main advantages of Red Bull Racing is that they choose the right development path from the very beginning and stick to it while upgrading the chassis.

And all the other teams had to change direction at some point, which affected their performance, and then they had to catch up. Therefore, the most important task is to choose the right path right away, so that you can eventually achieve the desired results.”