A double podium by Alpine in Brazil was the biggest surprise of the 2024 F1 season to date.
This led to a change in the championship standings, where Haas, who has had a phenomenal season, fell behind the Enstone-based squad in the standings.
It had garnered enough points to earn them sixth position compared to other midfielders.
However, nobody expected Alpine to have such a stellar weekend that propelled them up three spots from ninth place.
Haas failed to score in the F1 Brazil Grand Prix, as Alpine scored 35 points across the Sprint and main race. Three points separate the teams heading into the triple-header.
Nico Hülkenberg received external assistance after his spin, causing him to be disqualified, and Oliver Bearman finished 12th on a day full of adventures for the young Brit.
As mentioned previously, Haas has had a stellar year to this point, scoring in five consecutive race weekends before arriving in Brazil.
On the double Alpine podium, Komatsu had not expected any of the midfield rivals to catch up to Haas F1 via a double podium.
“This can happen anytime. Of course, I wasn’t expecting a double podium from any of our rival teams, as in Alpine, RB and Williams. But it happened, so it is what it is.
“We’ve got three races left, we’ve got to really regroup and refocus, and then just try to do the best job we can for the last three races. So congratulations to Alpine, they were quick, really quick.”
But this hasn’t deterred Haas from its main goal, which is being the leading team amongst the midfield runners.
Komatsu admitted that this result was mainly affected by the wet weather, as it does not really favor the Haas F1 VF-24 package, and he agreed that the team in general had made plenty of mistakes on Sunday at Interlagos.
Oliver Bearman, who is set to drive for Haas in 2025 alongside recent winner Esteban Ocon, stood in for Kevin Magnussen due to his last minute sickness.
Although the British driver placed 12th in the F1 Brazil Grand Prix, Komatsu was pleased with the 19-year-old’s efforts at such short notice.
“He’s such a fast learner, so he will learn from this, and he already learned from it, even during the race, his consistency got better, and the lap time was good as well.
“So put him in the same situation, if it was next weekend, he will do much better, there’s no doubt.”
While Haas wished to have a dry weekend, they learnt the car continues to be strong through Friday.
They had the in Sprint qualifying to be on the fourth row, but the wet conditions that came on Sunday did not help their case.
“Whether it be inters or full wet, we’re not very competitive. But to be fair the race, in patches, it was actually better than expected.
“So even for that side we found some positives. But there were so many operational errors, so we need to improve as a team on that.”
