Haas to evaluate Brembo and Carbon Industrie in Barcelona
Haas has yet to make a final decision on its brake supplier. Products from Brembo and Carbone Industrie will therefore be evaluated in parallel during the forthcoming winter tests in Barcelona.
For its first season, Haas performed well above the expectations of many observers. Nevertheless, it experienced numerous failures with its brake discs.
At the end of the season, the American team decided to try equipment supplied by the French company Carbone Industrie, instead of Brembo. However, with all the regulatory changes, last year’s evaluation has been reset, as explained by Günther Steiner, the team director, to ESPN: « We couldn’t try this season’s brakes last year. So we planned to do that this year. Last year, we concluded that the other equipment was also good and that we simply needed to have a second check for this season. The brakes are bigger, the discs are wider and thicker. The best way is always to have an option if you can. That’s what we did. »
On the occasion of the upcoming winter tests, which will take place at the end of February on the Barcelona circuit, Haas has planned to conduct a comparative evaluation of the equipment provided by the two suppliers. This will allow for a direct comparison of their performance under the same conditions: « For our brake supplier, we will have a parallel program to decide what we want to do. We will make a decision after the Barcelona tests. »
But this decision does not necessarily mean that one of the suppliers will benefit from an exclusive supply: « We are ready to use one or the other. We are prepared to have several options. We have not said that we are going to dismiss anyone. We simply wanted to see what else was available and have several options if someone did something much better. It could be one or the other, we will see. »
This solution of having two suppliers for the same part is not an extraordinary situation since it is the option chosen by a team like Mercedes. Thus, during the famous qualifying of the 2014 German Grand Prix, Nico Rosberg was using Carbone Industrie equipment while Lewis Hamilton suffered a failure of his Brembo brakes. Hence the importance of having two validated technical solutions to address any potential failure.
With the participation of www.racingbusiness.fr
