(Motorsports news) Haas has made great strides in resolving the underlying aerodynamic imbalance that plagued its F1 season last year, which meant the VF-23 could get its tires to perform well in qualifying but would then tear them up in races.
Haas spent the majority of its time in Bahrain finalizing long-term attempts to lessen the tyre problem through the design adjustments it has made in the off-season in order to prepare its VF-24 2024 contender for pre-season testing.
These seemed to pay off, as Hulkenberg scored in the second round of the season and Komatsu felt confident going into the season that “we can race this year in the midfield” before Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen both won twice in Australia.
Hulkenberg crashed out of the first race in Shanghai last weekend, citing “a wrong turn on the set-up” for his rapid tyre deterioration while running in the pack. He had started the race in 13th place and finished last.
Following the race the next day, Komatsu revealed that Hulkenberg’s uneven performance over the weekend underscored the difficulty Haas continues to face in maintaining narrow margins in order to prevent excessive tyre wear.
“I wouldn’t say it’s gone, gone,” Komatsu said in response to Haas’s question about whether he thought the old tire situation had been completely resolved or if Hulkenberg’s sprint situation had taken them off guard.
He said to Motorsport.com, “For example, we expected certain things [in China], but we experienced something different.”
“So, you can see that we killed Nico’s tire, but it’s not just the tire issue—there are a few other contributing elements as well.
Therefore, I am unable to state with certainty that we have moved past it. I believe that some novel places were revealed by this circuit, this temperature, and these substances.
However, because we concentrated on it, I believe we can improve in order to cover it.
“[If] we come here again, we’ll probably come up with slightly different configurations, which we haven’t got at this minute.”
“If you watch Kevin’s [sprint] race, he ran a strong race and placed P10. But he was moving too slowly.
There are other reasons why Nico took a step back; it’s not just one. Nonetheless, you can see how delicate it is.
“That is what might happen if you find yourself in specific situations or settings and don’t have enough margin to maintain the tires in good condition.
“So then, learning from that, we need to then have a car – everything, set-up configuration, driving – to give ourselves a bit more margin so that if certain situations happen, the tyres not gonna die [and] we’re not completely out of it.”
Komatsu went on to say, “It’s good that we put it right for this [main] race,” going back to a previous setup that Haas knew would be effective for the tires over longer runs as opposed to any “slight differences” that, as Hulkenberg was referring to, “actually made the car worse.”
“Nico’s [GP] pace, it wasn’t amazing, but still, it’s pretty good [to score a point],” he said.
