F1 | Haas aggressive: new fund in China and other changes in Miami

Haas comes out with a development of the VF-24. The American team is aiming to capitalize on the points from this start to the championship. The team principal, Ayao Komatsu, feared a difficult start to the season at the bottom of the starting grid and, instead, Gene Haas' team had a positive start, finishing in the points twice in Saudi Arabia and Australia, scoring four points which are worth the seventh place in the Constructors' World Championship ahead of Williams, Sauber and Alpine.

Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, perhaps, experienced less reactivity in the flying lap compared to last year, but the behavior of the car in the race pace has become decidedly better, following somewhat the direction that Ferrari had with the SF- 24.

But unlike the Scuderia, the Cavallino satellite team has launched a more accelerated development plan than Maranello. The first innovations that we will see in China concern the bottom, the rear brake ducts and the mirror supports, while in Miami a second block of updates is expected which will include newly designed pods.

It is curious that Haas has decided to introduce new technical specifications on tracks with Shanghai and Miami, despite knowing that these are events that both adopt the Sprint Race format, for which there will be only one free practice session on Friday morning before Shoot-out qualifications.

This is a change in philosophy compared to the management of Gunther Steiner who wanted not to risk any changes if they had not first been validated by all control processes. Haas, therefore, has divided the update package over two races in the knowledge that it will not have time to collect the data to give a qualitative evaluation of the new features.

Technical detail of the Haas VF-24 pavement

Picture of: Giorgio Piola

Andrea de Zordo's technical staff is going a bit in the dark, promising to carry out a back to back plan in Imola, when one of the two cars will be configured in the launch version. Since the team is convinced that development follows a process that is producing good results, we don't want to lose positive inertia by taking risks with choices made in the dark.

Haas VF-24: The second front splitter flap

Picture of: Giorgio Piola

Wanting to be mischievous, one could say that Maranello might not be displeased by Haas's anticipation, given that the VF-24 maintains a similar DNA to the red Ferrari and, perhaps, some solutions that will be anticipated on the Haas, could appear on the SF-24 in a more driven and exasperated manner.

The act of courage should pay off because Haas anticipates new solutions before much competition that animates the second part of the lineup. And the growth in performance depends precisely on the pace of developments…