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Haas dismiss '2017 Ferrari' comments

Published on 24 Mar 2018 14:16
8
By: Fergal Walsh

Haas has waved away comments that suggest the only reason for the upturn in pace is because its new car is a clone of the 2017 Ferrar. Haas surprised the paddock at winter testing, when it was realised that the American squad was running with a competitive package.

At qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, the team was 'best of the rest' as Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean qualified sixth and seventh respectively. However, McLaren's Fernando Alonso said he was "not surprised" as the new car "is a clone of last year's Ferrari."

Force India sporting boss Otmar Szafnauer said: "If you compare Haas with a 'normal' new team like Caterham, they had good resources and had good people and then didn't score a single point.

"Meanwhile Haas is at about the same level as us and this year may be ahead. But I recall that their pace of development slow down during the year - maybe because Ferrari start to focus on their own problems. I don't know," he said.

But Haas' Romain Grosjean has hit back at the comments made by its rivals, saying that it was no different last year: "It’s the same thing every time we’re fast," he said. "It was the same thing last year, we were a ‘Ferrari B [team]’.

"We’re using the same suspension, the same gearbox, the same engine. Everyone knows that the suspension are defining a lot of the flow so of course there’s going to be similarities. But again we’re doing our own car and if we were a Ferrari B we’d be up there with them. It’s not true and it’s not nice for the people that work at Haas and produce a Haas VF-18."

2018 is only Haas' third year in Formula 1, and it has had a much more successful run compared to the likes of Marussia and Caterham, who went out of business only a number of years after entering F1. Grosjean believes Haas has shown potential new teams how to enter the sport and be strong from the get-go.

"I think the way we operate the team and the way we’ve created our partnership is good for F1. It shows that you can come and make things look pretty good in a small amount of time.

"Of course if we had to do everything from zero we’d be nowhere [near] where we are today. So I think it’s a good thing for Formula 1 to show that ‘look, if you want to come to Formula 1 there’s a way to do it that you can actually be successful early on."

Fergal Walsh

kngrthr

Posts: 203

i think Grosjean makes a good point.
And if Haas stay around a while they will break away at some point and do their own thing.
this way avoids the early financial failures that all new recent teams have experienced.
lets see...

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Mar 24 2018 - 15:13

F1 News Fernando Alonso Romain Grosjean Kevin Magnussen Force India Ferrari McLaren Marussia

Replies (8)

Barron

Posts: 625
You can’t say I didn’t warn you this would happen. If it was allowed to continue, it may spell the end of F1 as an engineering formula. They nearly all voted against ‘customer’ teams and yet this is exactly what Haas is..
- + 0
- Mar 24 2018 - 14:35
- Pauli
  
  Posts: 140
  RB tried to build chassis for both teams in same factory but then rule was introduced that requires chassis development by separate entity. For other parts there is per cent limit how much can be bought.
  
  To me rules are just perfect for small teams trying to enter F1 like Haas. It is simple impossible to build a design team and let them learn cutting edge where F1 is in a time frame that financial people are ready to stig with an expensive an advertisement project.
  
  You can just look how slowly Renault or Sauber are now improving after having first down sizes their design teams because of financial issues. Of course their development speed is still very fast but it is big ask to compete in F1 when top teams usually improve over a second per lap from previous year.
  + 0
  
  Mar 24 2018 - 15:06
kngrthr

Posts: 203
i think Grosjean makes a good point.
And if Haas stay around a while they will break away at some point and do their own thing.
this way avoids the early financial failures that all new recent teams have experienced.
lets see...
- + 1
- Mar 24 2018 - 15:13
- calle.itw
  
  Posts: 8,527
  Yeah, I think so to. I see this as a sort of startup thing. And as long as they design most of the chassis themselves, and not directly copy Ferrari, Im fine with this.
  + 0
  
  Mar 24 2018 - 16:19
mbmwe36

Posts: 533
First of all, this whole "Ferrari 2017" thing is BS.
But even if it was a 90% copy, I still wouldn't care. I much prefer the HAAS way of entering F1 to the way the hopeless back markers like HRT, Manor etc.
If HAAS ever want to be world champions, they'll have to split from Ferrari anyway, so I don't really see the problem.
- + 0
- Mar 24 2018 - 17:38
- calle.itw
  
  Posts: 8,527
  Parts are probably derived from it, but its safe to say that its far from 90%. Its probably a similarity of 20% at best, realistically 10%. And I definitely agree with you.
  + 0
  
  Mar 24 2018 - 18:15
Jutlandia

Posts: 191
If Alonso is so in love with the Ferrari 2017, why did'nt he ask McLada to build a copy?
Envy is a bad thing.
- + 0
- Mar 24 2018 - 18:59
- mcbhargav
  
  Posts: 1,332
  The man always had issues.
  + 0
  
  Mar 24 2018 - 20:32