Günther Steiner provides an update on Haas’ progress

Appointment was set in the Ferrari motorhome. It is anything but a coincidence since the Scuderia is a major partner of the American team Haas as the latter will purchase the majority of the mechanical components for its single-seater.

That is why many team employees are based in Italy for next year’s car development: « The development is going well. We have about 70 engineers in Italy because we buy many parts from Ferrari. We can therefore use their wind tunnel and do not need 500 engineers to develop the car, » Steiner specifies.

The team will therefore be spread across three sites as Haas has also purchased the former Marussia premises in Banbury to establish its European logistics base there: « We bought the factory in January and moved in February. We are doing a lot of work there because we will not have the same needs since we will be manufacturing far fewer parts than they did. The work should be completed by the end of August. »

The Kannapolis site in the U.S. is dedicated to administrative aspects. Engineers specialized in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), specifically computer development, are also based there: CFD is done there. We have seven or eight people working on it, but it will be ramped up because we need more people. We have also ordered the machine tools to manufacture the metal parts we need for our 60% scale model that we use in the wind tunnel. These machine tools should not be too hard to secure since it is precisely the area of expertise of Haas Automation, the company founded by Gene Haas.

Such a geographical distribution is obviously not ideal, but with the business model in place, it is almost impossible to have all the staff in one building. However, the structures are set up for long-term development: « We are an American team. In five, six years, we may be able to have all the expertise in the United States, and we therefore need to have a base there. For example, for CFD, engineers do not need to come from F1. So we can have this department in the United States. But the computers for calculations are based in the United Kingdom, and we work over the Internet. »

Starting this summer, the team will also launch a recruitment campaign, notably for the staff who will travel to the Grand Prix events, which will be under the responsibility of Dave O’Neil: « We don’t need them right now but we shouldn’t wait too long either because most of these people have notice periods of three to six months. So it’s starting to be the right time to start the process. »

On the other hand, Haas does not plan to use the freedom it has to conduct as many tests as it wants because that would mean investing in the development of the car and in personnel to run it: « These cars are so complex that if you want to build one, you will have to invest 50 million dollars. But by next year, it will already be old, and you will have invested that money for nothing. So we prefer to focus on development until the last moment. »

This strategy is also linked to the fact that Haas can rely on Ferrari’s expertise, which has the know-how to make F1 cars operate: « We don’t do everything ourselves. We have a partner with a lot of experience. So we know we can run the car. We also know that we will have problems but that’s normal. We will know how to overcome them. »

Günther Steiner will also take a closer look at the driver lineup for next season. A decision should be made in the coming months: « For us, the ideal would be to have them by the end of the summer. » Negotiations have certainly started, and the leaders must surely be keeping an eye on Alexander Rossi’s strong performances in GP2.

From our special correspondent in Silverstone.

With the participation of www.Racingbusiness.fr