What next for the Haas F1 revival story?

Formula 1 loves to shout about the success of Drive to Survive. And rightly so. It took an already popular motorsport division and delivered it directly to the masses via our modern binge-watching fascination. Most teams have varying and intriguing stories to follow across its seasons, but perhaps none more so than Haas. And yet the American squad is the team with the shortest F1 history.

Since Drive to Survive made its debut ahead of the 2019 season, its cameras have captured plenty of Haas stories. The fallouts between former team-mates Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean in 2018-19 were among them, while its hero-to-zero swing in results in those years made a star out of sweary and likeable team boss Gunther Steiner. But the tales have become more painful over the years.

In 2020, with the pandemic’s costs biting the teams, there was intense speculation that Gene Haas could offload his eponymous squad. It needed additional investment to aid its continued F1 presence and that arrived in the form of underwhelming, controversial but wealthy junior driver Nikita Mazepin and his father’s company backing. Two storms engulfed the team at the end of 2020: Grosjean escaped the worst crash in recent F1 history, and barely a week later a video surfaced of Mazepin groping a woman’s chest.

The off-track drama was accompanied by a severe slide down the competitive order. Haas, lauded by some and despised by others as a new way of running an F1 team with its very close links to Ferrari and the listed parts it supplies, went from 2018’s fifth place to ninth for the next two years. The 2019 campaign was blighted by tyre-wear inconsistencies stemming from an aerodynamic-concept issue that meant some upgrades had to be rolled back.

In 2020, Haas faced a year of survival, which meant the already essentially frozen VF-20 received no chassis changes for the all-rookie line-up of Mick Schumacher and Mazepin arriving the following season. A 2022 revival was the aim, which became harder to remember with each pointless finish last year, all four of Schumacher’s big crashes and Mazepin’s lairy driving (mostly towards his team-mate) and off-track manoeuvring, captured in-depth by Netflix.

After an underdog success story in F1, Haas hit rock bottom in 2021 in a season of survival

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

But Haas has made the jump it targeted, with the team currently eighth in the constructors’ championship. The VF-22 shares more than a passing resemblance to the Ferrari F1-75, but Haas’s designers have added their own flourishes, such as its partially detached engine cover. It’s a very competitive midfield car, but so far only the experienced Magnussen has scored points with it. The Dane only arrived halfway through the pre-season as Haas’s next major off-track drama stemmed from Mazepin and his backing being dropped as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Over the last years people jumped to a conclusion that we’re a team which wants to stay last and don’t care about it,” Steiner tells Autosport at the recent Monaco GP. “They all assumed we’d stay where we are and just fill the field. No, no – we want to be back where we were in 2018 and even better. We are working hard and we made the first step this year.”

With its collective eyes set on the 2022 rules reset, Haas made several key decisions that have resulted in its dramatic improvement in form. Other than Ferrari rejoining the battle at the front and Mercedes slipping out of that contest, Haas alone has made the big competitive jump so many teams were eyeing this year.

Although the pandemic delayed the arrival of F1’s new ground-effect cars by a year, it meant the cost cap was finally adopted as a significant new factor in what makes a successful team. But the elongated process of getting the former Ferrari staff onboard reflects Haas’s previous form for building steadily

While Haas isn’t challenging for wins and podiums, paddock insiders were always clear that the bigger teams would retain a certain performance inertia as they came down to meet the new-for-2021 cost cap. Those leading squads, apart from Alpine, also manufacture the engines supplied to the rest of the field, which comes with intrinsic advantages, as any design changes can be worked first into works cars.

The $145million cost cap for 2021 (reduced to $140m this year) was of course more significant for the larger squads operating above it, since they had to slim down to meet the limit. But here Haas and Ferrari worked together to benefit the American squad and lessen the blow on employees that Ferrari would otherwise have simply been forced to let go.

Haas had gone through its own job-cutting pain in 2019-20 when its resource squeeze ahead of the new era meant it slimmed down to the bare minimum. This meant many engineers returned to work for Dallara, which assembles the cars run by its Banbury-based race team. But when Ferrari had to cut down too, it seconded 30 engineers to Haas to produce its car designs (previously done by Dallara) – led by ex-Ferrari chief designer Simone Resta.

After slimming down its operation, Haas forged closer ties to Ferrari with the team setting up a 'Haas hub' in Maranello

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The Italian team even devoted what would otherwise have become an empty building at its Maranello base to become the new Haas office in 2021.

Steiner says “nothing has really changed” in its operations. As well as the Maranello and Dallara offices, the race team is still run from the UK, while Haas’s headquarters are in Kannapolis, North Carolina. It’s just that the Haas staff level at Dallara’s Varano base is “a smaller amount”.

Although the pandemic delayed the arrival of F1’s new ground-effect cars by a year, it meant the cost cap was finally adopted as a significant new factor in what makes a successful team. But the elongated process of getting the former Ferrari staff onboard reflects Haas’s previous form for building steadily. When it first acquired an F1 entry in 2014, the team took until 2016 to make its debut. The results of its latest thorough building efforts are clear to see.

“It’s been a nice change in the team,” says Magnussen. “It’s a bigger group now in Maranello. That helps communication between the different departments – just being able to go and talk to each other. Our team for all those years has been spread out over the world. It’s also grown. We have more people and it feels better. And, of course, the car shows that too. So, it’s in a good place that Haas are pointing.”

Magnussen’s arrival back to Haas was a boon to the rather downtrodden squad in the aftermath of Mazepin’s exit. The Russian’s departure – a bitter one with a legal wrangling over the terminated Uralkali sponsorship still ongoing – occurred just when the team was hoping the focus would be on its hard work paying off.

In Magnussen, Haas rehired a driver it knows extremely well from four previous seasons. It was clear in Bahrain testing, just two weeks on from Mazepin’s final appearance at the Barcelona test, that Haas’s race staff were delighted to have the Dane back. The man himself couldn’t stop smiling, cutting a different figure from the dejected and detached Magnussen who departed Haas and F1 at the end of 2020 for IMSA, IndyCar and Le Mans. Since then, he’s become a father and is fully embracing this unexpected new chapter in his F1 career.

Magnussen's unexpected return to Haas has lifted team morale

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Things really couldn’t have got off to a better start with Magnussen’s Q3 appearance in Bahrain qualifying – Haas’s first since Brazil 2019 – which he backed up with fifth place in the season opener. He was ninth in Jeddah, lifting spirits after Schumacher’s huge qualifying shunt.

Points have been harder to come by since then – “We should actually be doing better this year than where we are now,” says Steiner – with only Magnussen’s eighth and ninth in the two Imola races in April adding to the team’s total. That sits at 15, with Haas’s form since Saudi Arabia a mix of misfortune and fluctuating pace.

A big effort went into solving the porpoising problem Haas encountered at its pre-Barcelona filming day for the same track. There, the team was relieved to discover almost all its rivals were having the same unexpected issue, with Ferrari engineers understood to have visited Haas early in the three-day event to confirm neither was alone in bouncing along the straights.

"Long-term, if we can keep these budget cap regulations stable, why would we not achieve podiums? We want to go on the podium and we want to grow as a team" Gunther Steiner

“I think we were the first ones to actually experience it,” says Steiner. “We were like, ‘What the hell is happening here?’ Because actually it didn’t work. But then we found out that everybody had that. Which doesn’t make it easier, but at least you think you haven’t screwed something up completely if everybody is in the same boat. We sorted it pretty early, but lost performance by sorting it – like everybody else.”

This meant making critical rideheight adjustments and introducing a revised floor notch and edge wing (at Imola), with Haas opting not to bring any major aerodynamic upgrades to the VF-22 until it was fully on top of the porpoising. That it qualified eighth and 10th in Spain, where many of its rivals had introduced a raft of updates, speaks to its good progress on 2022’s key technical challenge. Steiner is therefore “pretty confident” that, when Haas’s aero tweaks do arrive in the coming races, they will not “screw something on a platform that is not stable”.

“We are pretty happy where we have got the car,” he adds. “There’s still a lot of work to do to be sure that we 100% understand it, but I think we’re on a good way.”

Haas VF-22 package appears to be a genuine midfield contender

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Now that Haas has made the step it so desired, the obvious question is: what next? If Steiner is adamant that the team is not simply in F1 to make up the numbers, then it needs glittering success to grow further.

“We need to stabilise what we’ve got and build on it,” he explains. “And that is what we’re doing in the moment – we are already looking at 2023.

“Because the big steps are made year by year, not race by race. Race by race, you make the little steps and you need to keep on making them. But you always have to have a long vision for what you want to do long-term. And long-term, if we can keep these budget cap regulations stable, that we’re not going above and beyond again and back to the old times where you have got a big difference in budget between the teams, why would we not achieve podiums in the mid-term? We want to go on the podium and we want to grow as a team.”

That statement could come back to haunt Haas in coming years, but it’s not unrealistic and simply reflects Steiner’s irrepressible and no-nonsense character. The key factor in whether the team achieves those aims is ultimately going to centre on the budget cap.

Already, Red Bull and Ferrari are agitating to raise the 2022 limit to battle the recent big inflation rise, or are at least considering testing what the FIA might do if they commit what is considered a minor breach by going over the limit by a 5% maximum. But in reality, this has more to do with their desire to win the 2022 championship by having more resources to spend on car updates. This is why Steiner has been vocal in not acquiescing to such demands, even with Haas’s famous Ferrari ties.

For Haas’s short-term aims, it simply must start taking its auspicious 2022 package to more points finishes. Its coming upgrades will help if they work as intended, but Schumacher in particular has thrown away some very promising positions of late, most notably in Italy and the US. There have been sharp words from his team boss in response, that “you cannot just stick around not performing” in “a performance business” such as F1.

But Steiner’s current problem in getting an inexperienced driver to make good on his promise, and remove the proverbial monkey of no top results so far in 2022, is a challenge he is relishing far more than managing too-often-warring rookies last year. After all, it’s often said it is easier to make an erratic driver fast than a slow one quick…

The Schumacher-Magnussen driver dynamic has suited Haas after its double rookie line-up last year

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“Two rookies are very difficult,” Steiner reflects. “I learned that one. Because you have no reference. You never know where you are. That was the biggest challenge for me. Would you be better with one experienced driver? And now, we’ve got one experienced driver, which we know very well, because he drove for us for four years. We know where his strong points are, his weak points – because everybody’s got weak points as well. And then you can just see what the other driver can do.

“I think for Mick, it is an advantage to have somebody like Kevin, because it’s a reference for him as well. I mean, we all would like to have a reference, to measure yourself where you are and where you can get better. If I could copy any of the other [team principals] in how to get better, I would love to do that! But we are in competition, you cannot do it.

“But you have got two team-mates and they’re just looking at each other’s data, they both can learn out of it. So, I think that is the biggest difference [of 2021 versus 2022]. And two rookies, the biggest problem is you don’t know how good they are. You have no idea.”

"He’s [Gene Haas] happy that after all the people told him that we would never come back, we came back now" Gunther Steiner

Haas seems to now be discovering how good Schumacher is compared to Magnussen’s known quantity, but the suggestion from Steiner is that its improved fortunes mean that the team is not simply going to continue with the same line-up for 2023 if things don’t get better fast. And critically, he says, “we don’t have to have drivers that bring a budget”.

Magnussen’s return was announced as a multi-year deal, so he is set to occupy one of its 2023 seats. But there are several key elements why Schumacher should be considered a frontrunner to retain his drive. For a start, Steiner says, “with the superlicence being so rare and sparse, it’s not many people without a job”, and the current Formula 2 grid is not exactly packed with drivers on the superstar trajectory.

There is one driver who is but, as 2021 F2 champion, Oscar Piastri could not return to the support category and is instead focused on his test and development driver role at Alpine. That affiliation complicates matters if Haas were to be interested, but Alpine has already suggested it is open to a 2023 loan deal.

Schumacher must prove his worth if he is to keep his place at Haas

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Perhaps an established star could jump ship to Haas, as Grosjean did ahead of its debut. Pierre Gasly is in no doubt that the Red Bull door is totally closed, with Sergio Perez’s ongoing success and new contract, while Daniel Ricciardo is getting the tough-love treatment from McLaren. It also has promising IndyCar stars waiting in the wings (who could also possibly be Haas loanees for the last year of the Australian’s existing deal with the orange team in 2023).

But this is all hypothetical. And none of these theories trump Schumacher’s Ferrari junior contract, nor the possibility that something will click and the early-season big crashes and lack of points soon become a distant memory.

PLUS: The key strength Schumacher can rely on as Haas decides his F1 future

That Haas can be focused on its drivers’ points-scoring form or future line-up speaks to its progress since the tough seasons it has just traversed. Gene Haas committed the team to the new F1 Concorde Agreement (running 2021-25) in August 2020 and is no longer looking at selling up.

“He’s happy with it,” Steiner says of his boss’s assessment of his team’s rebuilding efforts. “I mean, he’s happy that after all the people told him that we would never come back, we came back now. But what I would like to do is to make this a business that doesn’t lose money. And it’s possible to do. If you get good results, it’s possible. Because with good results comes more prize money, comes more sponsors. That’s the aim. With the popularity of F1 rising, the value of the teams is rising. So how can he not be happy?

“There are various people that wanted to buy the team, but he said, ‘I don’t want to sell, why would I sell?’ Why would you sell a team if you don’t need the money now? Why would you sell it right now? Because there are only 10 teams in the world and there is a queue for buying them. So, don’t sell if you don’t need to. And I guess he does not need to!”

This then sums up Haas and F1 overall right now, encapsulated by Liberty Media’s headline marketing drive through projects such as Drive to Survive. A happy Haas reflects a healthy F1. And if the steps that aided its breakthrough can carry on levelling the competition between all the teams, the question will likely be how far it can further rise.

The future of the Haas F1 team looks bright, but how high can it set its targets?

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images