Haas impressed pre-season and was expected to be among the lead midfield runners, but instead it returns to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya only eighth in the standings. Motorsport Week takes a look at the reasons why.
Looking ahead to the Spanish Grand Prix Haas chief Guenther Steiner explained that his team “just needs to execute” a clean weekend – and with good reason.
As it prepared for its third season in Formula 1 Haas caught the eye among a congested midfield group, with widespread anticipation that it could be at the forefront of the fight.
It returns to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya having had the fourth- or fifth-fastest package at most events, and the consistency of the VF-18 has been encouraging after two years of wildly fluctuating displays.
It prompted finger-pointing from Haas’ rivals over the validity of its arrangements with Dallara and Ferrari, accusations that had not previously arisen when the midfield contingent did not regard Haas as a viable threat.
But it holds only eighth in the Constructors’ Championship, only three points better off than 12 months ago, and just a single point clear of Sauber – and with all due credit to the Swiss team, the squads have not operated in the same league as Haas so far in 2018.
Why is Haas in this predicament?
Australia wheel nut woe
Haas has typically performed strongly Down Under and the situation was repeated in 2018, with a confidence-filled Kevin Magnussen looping around Max Verstappen at Turn 1 to take fourth at the start.
Verstappen’s spin then promoted Romain Grosjean into fifth, giving Haas the prospect of a haul of 22 points – but a disastrous pair of pit stops caused the team’s race to unravel.
First Magnussen stopped with a loose wheel and mere moments later Grosjean too came to a halt, and the fault was blamed on cross-threaded wheel-nuts at both stops.
A number of factors were to blame, with one of them a lack of spares preventing sufficient pre-event practice – all part of the perils of being a relatively small operation.
The Australia loss has undoubtedly been Haas’ biggest missed chance so far – the 22 points it missed along would be enough for the team to currently occupy sixth in the standings – but it has been let down by other issues.
Loose parts
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Magnussen excelled in Bahrain to score a fine fifth place – but team-mate Grosjean was thwarted by a poor qualifying effort that left him mired down the grid.
A strong fightback brought the Frenchman back into the points, and on course for a potential seventh or eighth, until the left bargeboard detached, leaving his car “undriveable” for two laps.
Grosjean was forced into an unscheduled pit stop, while the aero imbalance caused by the absent part scuppered his top 10 aspirations.
Another left bargeboard detachment during qualifying in Azerbaijan hurt Magnussen’s chances; having taken ninth in Q1, the part made a bid for freedom, and he was forced to participate in Q2 without it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Magnussen was slowest – leaving him 15th rather than inside the top 10.
Chinese Safety Car annoyance
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The timing of a Safety Car deployment can leave some advantaged and other disadvantaged – and in China Haas duly fell into the latter category.
Magnussen and Grosjean both pitted prior to the collision between the Toro Rosso drivers that brought out the Safety Car.
Magnussen took the restart in seventh but was shuffled down to 10th by rivals with fresher rubber, while Grosjean’s strategy to run to the end on Mediums was fruitless as he tumbled out of contention.
“I don’t know if we should’ve pitted [under the Safety Car],” reflected Magnussen. “It was a tough choice. I just think the Safety Car came at a very unlucky time.”
Baku shenanigans
Pit stop woes, parts falling off and Safety Car timings were out of the drivers’ control, but the antics in Azerbaijan were not.
Magnussen was unfortunate that the bargeboard failure in qualifying left him out of position – and he powerless to avoid an over-exuberant Marcus Ericsson from attempting a move into Turn 2, for which the Sauber driver was penalised.
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But Magnussen was culpable in putting Pierre Gasly into the wall at high-speed during the late-race restart as they squabbled over the final points-paying positions, leading to damage and a deserved time penalty.
By the time Magnussen clashed with Gasly, Haas’ day had already taken a turn for the worst after Grosjean’s steady recovery drive ended with his bizarre crash behind the Safety Car.
Grosjean offered his apologies, and an excuse of sorts, for throwing away a haul of points in the incident, which occurred while running sixth.
The crash also left Grosjean as one of only two drivers – along with Williams rookie Sergey Sirotkin – yet to pick up a point in 2018.
Where to now?
The encouraging aspect for Haas is that its VF-18 has shown pace at four very different racetracks in a variety of conditions, a step change from last year when it headed into a weekend unsure exactly how its package would perform.
But while nearly every team can point to misfortune and missed chances across the opening quartet of events, Haas has lost more than most – it isn’t overly ambitious to suggest it has allowed around 40 points to slip through its grasp, a number that would easily leave it in fourth overall.
The early frustration means that Haas has less scope to make further errors – and is already chasing two rivals in Renault and McLaren that have greater resources in the development race, while Force India and Toro Rosso are no slouches either.
Haas deserves credit for the manner in which it has adapted to Formula 1 and grown, proving itself to be the strongest new private entrant in well over a decade, if not longer, as well as using the regulations to its advantage. It is no mean feat to be this quick when its size and budget is taken into consideration.
But if it is to realise its ambition of climbing up the Constructors’ Championship after successive eighth-place finishes, it cannot afford many more slip-ups.
