The technical partnership signed between Haas F1 and Toyota Gazoo Racing will soon bring some very concrete benefits.
Thanks to Toyota, Haas F1 will benefit from a new simulator, new production tools… but will also be able to finally conduct private tests with two-year-old cars. The famous TPC (Test of Previous Cars).
It is these TPCs that Red Bull and Max Verstappen used for example recently, at Imola, in order to better understand the limitations of the current car. Which had the effect of annoying Fred Vasseur (see our article)!
“The TPCs are also very important in terms of staff training”also explains the team director, Ayao Komatsu.
“We have a little over 300 people, we don’t have any wiggle room staffing wise, so if, say, a race engineer or a performance engineer decides to leave or can’t attend a race, we are really in trouble. »
“We are constantly on the edge, and to improve the organization, you cannot operate with this level of survival as a basis. We need to strengthen our organization, so thanks to the TPCs, we can start training our engineers, our mechanics, and have people in reserve. »
However, even for a small team like Haas F1, the budget ceiling remains an obstacle to private testing: there is no question of doing like decades ago and racking up thousands of kilometers!
Komatsu specifies: “The budget cap complicates things in the sense that we have to manage it like a time card, so the people dealing with historic cars, i.e. TPCs, are outside the cap, but a lot of these people must move to the racing team, and beyond a certain percentage we must include them in the budget cap. »
“So we have to manage these details well, but in terms of developing an organization, and having personnel in reserve or testing young people, for me, private trials, that’s the best environment. »
For these reasons, quality will be favored over quantity.
“If we wanted to do 20 days of TPC next year, we could. Whether or not we want to do 20 days is another question. We must remain sustainable, we must move forward in an efficient and targeted manner. It’s never a question of the number of days. We will develop a proper program and schedule and then do what is necessary. »
Toyota’s young drivers will participate in the TPC program, but at this time Komatsu is not considering Toyota Gazoo Racing personnel joining Haas F1 F1 directly.
“It’s not because we don’t want to. If someone has the right skills, we will put them on the racing team. You may know that some senior recruiting positions on the racing team have been really difficult to fill. If, for example, Toyota had a person matching this profile, I would have taken them straight away. But right now, they don’t have one. So we don’t take people from Toyota for the racing team, but it’s not a question of philosophy, we just take the person best suited to the job. »
“They want to develop their young drivers in the program to help them gain mileage. Their needs and ours come together. »
“It will be a completely collaborative mix and a joint effort, and that’s what we need.” »
