Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu has explained the “significant” choice to deviate from Ferrari’s proposed front-suspension layout for the 2025 Formula 1 season.
According to reports in Italian media, Ferrari is set to switch from push to pull-rod front suspension for the first time since 2015 for the upcoming campaign.
Haas operates a business model whereby it borrows as many components from Ferrari as is permitted under the regulations.
However, this year it is doing something different, with Komatsu explaining time and money, valuable commodities to F1’s smallest team, favour carrying over the 2024 Ferrari suspension components.
“That’s a significant moment in my mind, because so far in nine seasons of Haas F1 team, we always went with Ferrari’s latest supply, and not because that was the informed choice, because that was the safest and easiest choice,” said Komatsu (via The Race).
Komatsu was convinced that carrying over the 2024 Ferrari front suspension was the right call after conversations with Haas, Technical Director Andrea De Sordo, Head of Aero Davide Paganelli and Performance Director Damien Brayshaw.
“It’s not like this year we wanted to make a point, but Andrea and Davide and Damien came to me and said [this was the right decision],” Komatsu explained.
“They’ve been talking about this for the last few seasons, but we never actually did carry over the front suspension,” he continued.
“But when they looked at it properly in terms of, ‘OK, if we buy Ferrari’s ’25 front suspension, when are we going to have the information available and what does that mean in terms of the aero hit?’ because you have to take a hit first, you have to recover.
“So comparing that and how much potential that unlocks against [the benefit if you] don’t stop development because we carry over the front suspension.
“They’ve done the proper study and the conclusion was we should do a carryover. Then we had the confidence to then go for that decision, whereas before we didn’t.”
Komatsu rules out scrapping 2025 development in favour of 2026
Haas famously scrapped the development of its 2021 car in favour of getting a head start on the rule changes in 2022.
The same conundrum faces teams today with next year ushering in a new rules cycle.
But probed on whether that had informed Haas’ decision regarding the front suspension on the VF-25, Komatsu said: ”At the end of the day, we have to be competitive in ’25 as well.
“It’s not like we can say we’re focusing on ’26 so we write off ’25, that was the excuse in previous times but it cannot happen,” he added.
“So we said, ‘To be the best in ’25, which is the best solution?’ And then after the proper study, their recommendation was we should go with the carryover. So I said, ‘Good, go for it’.”
Haas will change chassis for 2025
One facet of the VF-24 that will not be carried over into the 2025 Haas F1 challenger is the monocoque chassis.
Despite successfully upgrading the VF-24 last week and avoiding the development pitfalls of many other teams, Komatsu felt that the chassis limited the team from enhancing performance even further.
“We developed the car pretty well last year, but there are certain limitations that we had to accept,” Komatsu said.
“And then things we learned mid-season about how to unlock performance – even [things] we wanted to do for Silverstone and Austin [upgrades] but we couldn’t do because of the limitation of the chassis design.
“So we decided to change for this year’s car,” he concluded.
READ MORE – Haas denies future Ferrari F1 recall for Oliver Bearman would be ‘frustrating’
