Komatsu: Haas has to “regroup” after losing place to Alpine

Haas had a difficult weekend in Brazil

Haas Formula 1 boss Ayao Komatsu says his team has to “regroup” and “refocus” after a frustrating weekend in Brazil saw it lose a place in the constructors’ championship lost to Alpine.

Haas had been consolidating its sixth position with good scoring relative to VCARB in recent races only for a double podium at Interlagos to propel Alpine up three spots from ninth.

Meanwhile Haas failed to score in the wet Sao Paulo GP, with Nico Hulkenberg disqualified after receiving outside assistance following a spin, and Oliver Bearman finishing 12^th after an eventful race that included a penalty for hitting Franco Colapinto.

Komatsu accepted that a big score for a midfield team in a chaotic race was always a possibility.

“This can happen any time,” Komatsu told me. “Of course, I wasn’t expecting a double podium from any of our rival teams, as in Alpine, RB and Williams. But it happened, so it is what it is.

“We’ve got three races left, we’ve got to really regroup and refocus, and then just try to do the best job we can for the last three races. So congratulations to Alpine, they were quick, really quick.”

Komatsu admitted that wet weather doesn’t favour the Haas VF-24, although he admitted that the team had also made mistakes.

“Not making any excuses, but I would have preferred a dry weekend, because in the dry I’m sure we had pace,” he said. “We showed that in FP1, that we have pace.

“And we showed it in sprint qualifying as well. In SQ3, Ollie had low tyre temperatures, but we should have been fighting for P6, P7. So in the dry, I think we were decent.

“But this year we discovered whenever we run in wet condition, either inters or full wet, we’re not very competitive. But to be fair the race, in patches, it was actually better than expected.

“So even for that side we found some positives. But there were so many operational errors, so we need to improve as a team on that.”

Despite Bearman’s difficult race Komatsu praised his reserve driver after he replaced Kevin Magnussen at the last minute.

“If you talk about baptism on fire, our car is not the easiest car in those conditions,” he said. “So if he was driving, let’s say an Alpine, it would be a different story as well.

“Ollie made many mistakes. He was inconsistent, but he showed the potential. Of course if Kevin was driving, he would have been more consistent, I’m sure. But you throw somebody into the most difficult conditions.

“I had a good chat with Ollie already afterwards, and I said what I needed to say, but not in a bad way.

“He’s already proven that he’s such a fast learner, so he will learn from this, and he already learned from it, even during the race, his consistency got better, and the lap time was good as well.

“So put him in the same situation, if it was next weekend, he will do much better, there’s no doubt.