Haas has made considerable progress on the problem that blighted its F1 campaign last year, caused by a fundamental aerodynamic imbalance that meant the VF-23 could run its tires well for qualifying, but would then eat them up in the race .
While preparing its 2024 VF-24 Challenger in pre-season testing, Haas spent most of its time in Bahrain carrying out long-term efforts to alleviate its tire problem with tire modifications. design that he brought during the offseason.
It seemed to pay off, with Hulkenberg scoring in the second round of the season and Komatsu reckoning “we can run this year in midfield” from the season opener before Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen doubled up in Australia.
In last weekend’s opening race in Shanghai, Hülkenberg fell from 13th place to finish last, blaming “a bad turn in the settings” as he quickly encountered severe tire degradation as he was riding in the peloton.
After Hulkenberg scored a point with a 10th place finish in the next day’s grand prix, Komatsu explained how its driver’s erratic weekend highlighted the “thin margins” challenge Haas still faces in avoiding crashes. high levels of tire wear.
Asked if Haas thought the old tire problem had been fully resolved or if Hülkenberg’s sprint situation had surprised him, Komatsu replied: “I wouldn’t say it’s gone, gone “.
“For example, we expected certain things [in China]we experienced something different,” he told Autosport.
Nico Hulkenberg, Haas VF-24, Valtteri Bottas, Kick Sauber C44
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“You can look at Nico’s sprint: it’s not just the tire problem, but the result of several factors combined, [but] we killed Nico’s tire.
“I can’t say yet [that] 100% we are completely done with this. I think this circuit, with this temperature, and then these compounds exposed new areas.
“But because we focused on that, I think [it’s] something we can work on to improve and cover.
“[If] If we come back here, we’ll probably offer slightly different configurations, which we don’t have yet.”
“If you look at Kevin’s [sprint] race – a solid race, finished in P10. But his pace wasn’t great.
“The way Nico backed off is not a single factor, it’s a combination of factors. But you can see how sensitive it is.
“If you find yourself in certain conditions, in certain scenarios, if you don’t have the margin to keep the tires in good condition, that’s what can happen.
“So learning from that, we need to have a car – everything, the setup, the handling – to give us a little bit more margin so that if certain situations happen the tires won’t die.” [and] We’re not completely out of it.”
Komatsu added that “it’s good that we fixed things for this [main] race” by reverting to a previous setup arrangement, Haas knew it would work for the tires on longer stints rather than some “slight differences” he had tried that “actually made the car worse”, as the also referred to Hülkenberg.
He concluded: “Nico [GP] the pace wasn’t incredible, but still, it’s pretty good [to score a point]”.
