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Haas has unleashed what team boss Ayao Komatsu has described as a “huge change” to its Formula 1 race team structure to address a major weakness.
Despite the progress Haas made last year as it moved from being the bottom outfit to finishing seventh in the constructors’ championship, Komatsu felt that there were areas of its performance that were not good enough.
In particular, he felt that its growing competitiveness had exposed weaknesses in its race weekend execution and poor strategy decisions – which is why he has gone for an overhaul.
The changes include the appointment of three new senior roles – former Audi Dakar performance team leader Francesco Nenci as chief race engineer, former RB race strategy engineer Carine Cridelich as new head of strategy and former Haas employee Mark Lowe returns to the team as its new sporting director.
These added positions are designed to provide an extra layer of robustness and experience to Haas’s operations.
Beyond the new appointments, there will also be changes to the race engineer roster, with former performance engineers Laura Muller and Ronan O’Hare stepping up to work with Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman respectively.
HAAS STAFF CHANGES
New hires
Mark Lowe
Sporting director
Former operations and team manager at Haas returning to team
Carine Cridelich
Head of Strategy
Previously: Race strategy engineer at RB
Francesco Nenci
Chief race engineer
Previously: Dakar performance team leader at Audi
Internal changes
Laura Muller
Race engineer - Esteban Ocon
Previous role: Performance engineer
Ronan O'Hare
Race engineer - Oliver Bearman
Previous role: Performance engineer
Andrea de Zorda
Technical director
Promoted last year to replace Simone Resta
Tom Coupland
Chief Designer
Promoted last year
Davide Paganelli
Head of aerodynamics
Promoted as part of Ferrari secondment
Jonathan Heal
Deputy chief designer
Promoted as part of Ferrari secondment
Komatsu said that while the team’s technical structure had gelled well since he took over at the start of last year, it was in race weekend execution where he felt things were lacking.
“It's a huge change, but I felt it was one of the weakest areas last year,” he said of the overhaul.
“The more the car became competitive, it kind of exposed it more, if you like.
“In terms of [race] execution, we should have finished P6 [in the championship], but we didn't. Part of it was we left too many points on the table from the trackside operation. So we really needed to step up on that one.”
Komatsu said it was clear from race one last year that Haas was not in the place it needed to be in terms of maximising its opportunities.
That was at the Bahrain Grand Prix when Kevin Magnussen missed out on a points-scoring chance after losing positions around the pitstops.
But Komatsu's mind about the need for change was probably made up by a later run of strategy errors - including at the Dutch GP, the United States GP and Mexico GP.
“We should have scored the points with Kevin in race one,” said Komatsu. “That was a pretty straightforward decision as well, that didn't go very well.
“There were so many times that under pressure we don't seem to function as well as we should do.
“But it's not just about the people, it is also the amount of training we can give.”
The latter aspect will be helped this year by the team’s commitment to a full test programme using an old car through an arrangement with Toyota for what is officially known as Testing Previous Cars (TPC).
“It was really important for us to just get a TPC programme up and running, which is a step up in the organisation,” added Komatsu.
“This will really give those guys, and the new drivers, the opportunity to work together in a less pressured environment.”
While quickly understanding last season that the race team structure needed a revamp, Komatsu equally had to accept that changing too much too quickly would risk derailing its campaign.
That is why he wanted to wait until the winter to get both the right structure and the right people in place even if it meant enduring some pain throughout 2024 while things remained unchanged.
“I had to focus on priority triple A, which was the technical side,” he said.
“I had to make sure that all the real car feedback was going through the technical office and windtunnel, so that we can develop the car correctly.
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“I couldn't delay that for a second. I had to really go for that one.
“I knew it was less than ideal, but I could not change too many things. We are such a small team with no margin, that we cannot just disintegrate.
“I really had to be brutal in terms of saying, 'OK, I know these things are not great, but I really need to ignore it until such a stage that we can deal with it as a team.'
“So I said ‘we're going to do this trackside [structure] for a year, and then we revamp’.
“It's kind of like right timing, but it still doesn't change the fact that it's going to be a huge challenge for us.”
Beyond the changes that Haas has announced, there have been two key departures since the end of last year.
Team manager Peter Crolla, who originally joined the squad in 2015 prior to its entry into F1, has left, while equally long-serving race engineer Gary Gannon - who worked with Romain Grosjean, Mick Schumacher and Nico Hulkenberg - has moved to Aston Martin.
