Haas gets an F1 reality check

There is a saying that if something is too good to be true, it usually is.

So is the case with Haas, because following a solid showing in the first pre-season test at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya last week, the harsh realities of Formula 1 have now hit home.

There can be no doubt the VF-16 Haas appears to be a solid car, described favourably by Romain Grosjean, who knows a thing or two about good and bad cars out of the box given his time spent with Lotus.

Grosjean credits chief aerodynamicist Bob Agathangelou for delivering a stable car, critical for testing and a base from which performance can be extracted.

Aside from a front-wing failure on the morning of the first day when Grosjean was driving - attributed to a weakness in the construction of the attachment structure that was soon remedied - the car ran reliably for the rest of the week, with only the odd minor niggle here or there.

Overall, Grosjean and team-mate Esteban Gutierrez completed 281 laps between them - more than McLaren (257) and Manor (254) - and both posted respectable times.

The signs were extremely positive, and proof, if needed, a start-up team could be respectable out of the box.

Only Manor survives from F1's intake of new teams in 2010 © XPB

Yes, Haas is very different to the three teams that emerged blinking into the glare of F1's severe spotlight in 2010, all three of which stumbled around blindly as they tried in vain to aid their ill-fated journeys.

Manor has survived, but only just after falling into administration towards the end of 2014, while the other two teams that morphed into HRT and Caterham ultimately succumbed to the financial hardship that can plague F1 outfits.

Haas has taken an entirely different route, forging an alliance with Ferrari that has allowed it to take on contemporary power units, and a ream of listed parts after taking full advantage in the regulations at the time of submitting its entry early in 2014.

But a week in F1 is a very long time, and so it has proven for Haas, because seven days after all appeared to be going according to plan, its world has been turned upside down.

Initially, a fuel-system issue brought an early end to day one of the second test, with Esteban Gutierrez completing just 23 laps.

Overnight the turbocharger was replaced, but on the car's installation lap on the morning of the second day, data showed the replacement's rpm to be running too high.

Despite in-depth analysis from Ferrari, and an attempt at another replacement, the complex nature of the issue proved defining, with time ultimately beating the team in its bid to return to the track before the end of the day.

Haas is witnessing a tougher second week in Barcelona for his team © XPB

While it would be harsh to suggest what has occurred is a wake-up call for team owner Gene Haas, given his experience of motorsport, certainly the 63-year-old from Ohio has been served a harsh reminder as to how unforgiving F1 can be.

"We were doing a lot better last week, now I don't know," was Haas's stark assessment of where he figured his team stood in the current pecking order.

"People were expecting us to falter a little bit, but we came out strong, got a lot of laps in, now this week we've not done as many.

"What we're facing is more the reality of what racing is all about. We have a lot of new components to our team, and making them all work together is a challenge."

Haas has claimed the complexity of the cars to be "way beyond anything I ever expected", as well as being "naive" about "what goes into making one of these cars run".

Citing one example, which caught the team out last week when Gutierrez was in the car, Haas said: "Take a simple thing like brakes.

"You simply can't go out there and stop on your brakes. You have to heat them up to the exact temperature to get them to work.

"If they're not at the right temperature then they won't work, they can overheat. There are all sorts of catastrophic things that can happen if you don't do them perfectly."

Haas claims to being "a little bit overwhelmed" about how complex F1 is, an eye-opening comment given he has run a NASCAR team for 14 years.

Asked by Autosport whether he now had any regrets given the realisation of what he had taken on was beginning to hit hard, the answer was a surprise.

There's more to making an F1 car run than Haas had imagined © LAT

There was no definitive response from Haas as he said: "No, ahh, no, not really.

"We'll see how it goes down the road, how difficult it is. I can understand how teams struggle in this business, even the big ones. There are a lot of technical challenges to overcome.

"It's a case of, can we figure out the organisation such that we can overcome these problems."

Much will depend on the team's relationship with Ferrari, with Haas conceding it is "relying very heavily" on assistance from the Maranello powerhouse.

The upside is it's perhaps better to endure these problems now, to iron out the flaws that can occur in testing, rather than on Friday or Saturday in Melbourne ahead of the team's debut in Australia.

"This is very valuable track time we've lost, but on the good side of it, it is very good time for the team to figure these cars out," said Haas.

"This is a brand new team, a brand new car and engine package, so the process of troubleshooting, taking things apart and putting them back together has been very valuable in terms of the experiences we're going to inevitably have.

"When we go to races you have problems, you have things that don't work."

Inevitably, given how well Haas performed last week, the bar of expectation was unsurprisingly raised.

The eye on points in its debut campaign - as mentioned before pre-season began by both Haas and team principal Gunther Steiner - has not gone away.

Haas admits his team is "relying very heavily" on Ferrari's support © LAT

But do not expect Haas to be pushing the frontrunners for grid space, as a few observers last week suggested could be the case.

Putting a more realistic slant on proceedings, Haas said: "Base expectation is to go to the races and be reliable, not suffer from the typical problems you have in trying to get one of these cars on the track.

"They are very technical. We have to build that technical expertise ourselves, that's something we have to get right.

"It's maybe a bit more of a challenge than we expected, but it's a matter of time.

"The team is solid, the crew members are enthusiastic. It's a matter of learning and learning from our mistakes too."

Haas's experience is at least standing him in relatively good stead because while his eyes have been opened when it comes to F1, he claims what he has endured so far does not compare to when he first started out in NASCAR.

But he is clearly aware there remain many more potentially severe bumps in F1's often very rocky road.

"The first few years in NASCAR were quite a bit rougher than what we've actually experienced here," assessed Haas.

"That was building a team without any knowledge. At least here we have some knowledge about racing cars, so we're further ahead going into this sport than I when I started in NASCAR.

"It's all a learning process, but this could be a very tough learning process."