Haas will use a Ferrari simulator to give his relatively inexperienced driver line-up valuable track time with 2022 F1 cars. The small American squad does not have its own simulator system and therefore uses an old Scuderia simulator.
In an interview with RN365, team boss Guenther Steiner said:
“Right now we’ve done very little (preparation) with the New Era car. We went to the simulator before testing because we build the model that we use, I call it the old Ferrari simulator, Ferrari’s commercial simulator. But we’re just setting it up. The first rounds will be (early February) and then we’ll see. And so at least hopefully we somehow relate them to the behavior of the new car.”
After a miserable 2021 season in which the team spent most of its time lapping at the back of the grid, Haas is once again hoping to repeat its 2019-18 success.
Haas’ controversial collaboration with Ferrari
One of the leanest F1 teams in the history of the sport, Haas has a unique approach to racing. Typically, most teams can be broken down into two major groups – the racing portion and the design and manufacturing portion.
Haas is a pure racing company and outsources almost all of its manufacturing processes to Dallara while buying as many unlisted parts from Ferrari as possible.
The Scuderia supplies almost every unlisted part that is approved by the regulator, including transmissions, rear suspensions, front brake lines and more. Additionally, the Italian company has a dedicated Haas division at its Maranello location (but separate from its own F1 team) that works with Haas designers to produce listed parts.
When asked how much control the team has over the design of their car, Steiner said in an interview with RN365:
“Hard to say. Aero is always dominant in an F1 car and we make our aero 100 per cent ourselves. Obviously we buy suspension and therefore we have very little if not no control over it so that goes without saying I don’t know what percentage you want to give the aero, but that’s 100 percent in our control.”
This unique model was controversial, with other teams accusing the Little American Outfit of “cheating.” Between 2017-18, Haas threatened other, more established teams for P4 in the Constructors’ Championship despite being only two years old. However, Haas has fired back, claiming it’s the best way for small teams to be competitive against top teams with nearly four to five times their budget.
Although the model has brought relative success to the team, it has often been a disaster as its fate is closely linked to Maranello’s. The Haas VF-19 was fast in qualifying, but during the race its tires burned quickly. Throughout the 2019 season, the team struggled to understand why and was unable to resolve the issue due to outsourced manufacturing.
also readThe article continues below
As the Scuderia’s performance took a hit the following season, Haas suffered too, slipping to P9 in the constructors.
Sign in to reply
