The first two races of the 2024 Formula 1 season have provided confirmations – above all the dominance of Red Bull – and surprises. In this second category, Haas deserves to be mentioned for the moment. Fresh from the change of team principal at the beginning of January – with the failure to renew Gunther Steiner and the promotion of Ayao Komatsu to the role of top manager of the team – many predicted that the American team would end up at the bottom of the grid. Instead, after two races Haas has already managed to enter the points thanks to the tenth place achieved in the Saudi Arabian GP by Nico Hulkenberg. The stars and stripes team is the only one to have moved up the rankings among the mid-bottom teams, in a start to the season monopolized for now by the 'usual' top-5: Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin. The same people who work in the Haas factory in Maranello did not expect to immediately be at the performance level of the various Alpines, Williams, Racing Bulls and Saubers. This is because the package of updates brought between Lusail and Austin last season, with the aim of straightening the performance of the VF-23, wasted a lot of time for the development of the 2024 car. The team owned by Gene Haas is in fact months behind from the point of view of the evolution of the car and this paradoxically turns into good news because there is still a lot of room for improvement for the future. The first updates this year should arrive for the Chinese GP and then be constant throughout the championship. But there are also other elements that make the members of the Haas team smile: first of all the excellent teamwork played by Kevin Magnussen in Jeddah to help Nico Hulkenberg. The Dane understood that the penalties would have destroyed his race anyway and agreed to play a role as a team player, proving to be fundamental in allowing his teammate to maintain tenth position. Finally, we cannot fail to underline the extraordinary debut performance of Ollie Bearman, the 18-year-old Englishman called at the last moment to replace Carlos Sainz. The Briton, who grew up in the Ferrari Academy, is – according to radio market rumors – destined to drive permanently next year for the team made in USA. The disastrous recent precedents of rookies in Haas, with the resounding failures of Mazepin and Schumacher, should not excessively influence the team's choices and certainly a 'Jeddah-trained' Bearman will be able to come in handy in 2025 at Haas in its slow recovery journey.
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