Spa, another home race for Haas

Haas presents an atypical profile in the paddock. Indeed, while the team has a development site in North Carolina, it also has an operational base in the United Kingdom, along with significant technical partnerships with Ferrari and Dallara, located in Italy.

But it is perhaps in Belgium that the link between Haas F1 Team and Haas Automation is strongest, as the European headquarters of the company is located in the suburbs of Brussels. If Gene Haas decided to invest in F1, it is precisely to strengthen his company on the Old Continent, after securing a leadership position in the North American market. He exclusively revealed to us the impact his investment had on his main business: « It’s very, very positive. Being in F1 has allowed us to talk to people we never had access to before. It really made us change categories. »

The American businessman attends a number of races for both F1 and Nascar. Nevertheless, the majority of his time remains devoted to Haas Automation, and he does not fail to highlight the synergies that can exist between auto racing and his machine tools: « The majority of my time is dedicated to machine tools, but even when I’m on a track, I learn a lot about what types of machine tools I should develop for the future because there are so many racing car parts that are made on machine tools. Increasingly, the parts that go on an F1 are similar to those in an industry like aerospace, which is a very important industry for us. »

Since its launch, the team’s single-seaters have prominently featured stickers with the names of Gene Haas’s companies. The team’s business model primarily relies on revenue from the FOM, through the distribution of F1 profits: « We don’t desperately need sponsors. » However, the businessman is open to the arrival of external sponsors but is not willing to devalue his brand image: « I’m here primarily to promote the Haas brand. It’s an asset, and I’m not going to offer it for nothing. My goal is for people to think of it as the Haas car, not the Haas-XXX car. »

Many guests and brand employees will gather in the stands of Spa-Francorchamps throughout the weekend.

With the participation of www.racingbusiness.fr