Haas needs to show its potential in Bahrain, or hope for rivals to falter

The Haas F1 Team simply cannot catch a break at the moment, enduring a hugely damaging time behind the scenes in the last few weeks and now battling against unexpected freight problems completely out of the team’s control.

It’s the way of the world somewhat that the one outfit who absolutely did not need anything else to go awry in anticipation of the Bahrain test, would be hit with as big a hurdle as crucial components of the cars being stuck in Doncaster Airport until late Tuesday night. The cargo plane which was due to arrive in the UK to transport the freight to Bahrain was grounded in Istanbul earlier in the week due to a technical malfunction.

The team confirmed yesterday morning in a statement that the VF-22 would not take to the Bahrain track for the first morning of the test in Bahrain today. Instead they are targeting running in the afternoon session with interim driver Pietro Fittipaldi at the wheel.

Fittipaldi replaces Nikita Mazepin at the team for thie first day of the pre-season test after Haas parted ways with Mazepin’s Russian backer Uralkali, following Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. Uralkali has since demanded a refund of all title sponsor money paid in anticipation of the 2022 season, which it says will go towards an interestingly coined ‘We Compete As One’ fund for athletes displaced “for political reasons”.

Late on Wednesday Haas made the driver announcement everyone had been waiting for, with former long-time Haas racer Kevin Magnussen returning on a long-term deal to the championship which he so unceremoniously departed after the 2020 season. He will line up alongside Mick Schumacher from the second day of the test in Bahrain.

Image: Haas F1 Team

Besides the comforting return of their former driver, Haas has not only endured enormous struggles off track so far this year, but it completed a meagre lap count in the first pre-season test in Barcelona – racking up the lowest number of laps of all, with 160 – over the three days. 108 of those laps were completed on the less problematic second day, after a cooling leak curtailed Schumacher’s afternoon run plan on the first day.

An oil leak after only 9 laps of running on the final day ended their test for good, and the team began packing up and heading for home while others circulated the Barcelona circuit.

They seemingly outpaced Alfa Romeo from a lap times perspective though, even when respective fuel loads, tyres and track conditions are taken into consideration. This ray of sunshine in an otherwise overcast affair is happily teamed with the prospect that the VF-22 looks to have some serious potential. With technical experts noting the merits of the intricate design as being reason to expect great things on the performance front.

Haas’s car should, in theory, be one of the best developed cars out there at this stage after deciding to focus fully on 2022 straight from the outset of 2021. The absence of any non-mandatory aerodynamic development of last year’s car should transfer over as a positive for 2022 as a more developed car. And the car we saw in Barcelona looks to have undergone serious development in the off-season.

However we shouldn’t expect a radically different and more greatly developed design to hit the track in Bahrain, as we are for the likes of Mercedes, with the team looking to subtly evolve the car it has and make sure it understands its key nuances ahead of the new season.

This was one of the key factors behind its drop-off in performance in 2019 when the VF-19 was suddenly incredibly aggressive on its tyres, which prevented drivers Magnussen and Romain Grosjean from having much of a chance against competitive midfield rivals. The team didn’t understand the issue, due to its erratic nature, therefore had to effectively abandon a lot of that car’s concept and come up with a new one for 2020 that it hoped would solve the problem.

Image: Formula 1

A similar scenario would be a nightmare at the beginning of such a tightly regulated technical regulations era in which there are an array of unknowns. Previous regulations overhauls taught us that any setback now will be carried with you for, potentially, many more seasons to come.

Right now, we shouldn’t be overly concerned on the face of it for Haas, we have only had one pre-season test so far! But the American team cannot afford an unsatisfactory second test blighted by further reliability issues.

If I was to be cynical, the potential for crash damage and spares shortages has increased now that Fittipaldi has been parachuted into the car at such short notice, having not driven an F1 car since the latter stages of 2020. He’ll be looking to prove himself to the team’s management, which I’m sure he’ll be politely advised to avoid.

That would be the last thing Gene Haas and Guenther Steiner needed to worry about. They’ll be looking for any ounce of potential that’s visible in the next three days, and any faltering from rivals.

Author: Danny Herbert