Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu has explained that the team won’t go its usual path by not taking the new Ferrari F1 front suspension in 2025.
It’s the final year of the current generation of Formula 1 cars. Huge changes are coming in 2026 and teams are already in full development mode. With the 2025 season approaching, Haas starts to take things in their own hands. Historically, the American team purchased its engine and other components from Maranello. This year, the front suspension won’t be on their shopping list.
Ahead of the upcoming campaign, Haas made some internal changes. First, an all new driver line-up formed by former Alpine driver Esteban Ocon and Ferrari’s super talent Oliver Bearman. Further changes were made, including Laura Müller becoming the first female F1 race engineer in the sport’s history.
Haas to develop 2024 front suspension, Komatsu says
Speaking to Planet F1 and other select media, Komatsu has explained why Haas won’t take the brand new Ferrari front suspension. Despite the upgrade, it would take some time to learn how the component reacts to the rest of the machinery.
“We always went with Ferrari’s latest supply — and not because that was an informed choice, because that was the safest and easiest choice,” Komatsu said.
Haas team members actually analysed the benefits of potentially taking the new Ferrari front suspension. The final conclusion was to carry over the old one and develop it further. Komatsu believes that the team would have taken an “error hit” with the new suspension.
“You have to recover, and then [see] how much potential that unlocks, comparing that against [what happens if you] don’t stop development, because we carried over the front suspension. How much potential is left in that?
“They’ve done a proper study, then the conclusion was we should do a carryover.
“It’s good that we’ve done a proper study; then we had confidence to then go for that decision, whereas before we didn’t.”
New monocoque in 2025 confirmed
Komatsu further explained that the 2025 car is concept-wise an evolution from what was learned throughout 2024. He admitted that Haas will have a new monocoque for the upcoming year, as the team struggled with unlocking performance last season.
“We were developing the car pretty well last year but there are certain limitations that we had to accept,” he explained.
“And then things we learned, say, mid-season about how to unlock certain performance — even what we wanted to do for Austin, we couldn’t. Or even Silverstone.
“But we couldn’t do it because of the monocoque design, the chassis design. So that’s something we decided how we want to change for this year’s car.”
The new season will first start with the F1 75 Launch event at the O2 Centre in London on 18 February, where teams unveil their liveries for 2025. Pre-season testing in Bahrain follows shortly after from 26-28 February, with the season opener returning to the Australian Grand Prix in mid-March.
