Haas is preparing for a small internal revolution for the 2025 season. The American team wants to continue the great momentum built during the previous campaign (7th in the Constructors' Championship in 2024) and since the promotion of Ayao Komatsu to the head of the stable as Team Principal. Thus, the American team has made several changes to its technical department with a new team of engineers made up of recruits and members promoted internally.
To support the arrival of Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman, Haas has promoted two of its employees to race engineers. Laura Müller – who we introduced to you here – becomes the first female racing engineer in Formula 1 and will be associated with Esteban Ocon, while Ronan O'Hare will be Oliver Bearman's racing engineer.
“A huge change” recognizes Komatsu
Among the new Haas recruits, we note the return of Mark Lowe as sporting director of the American team (a position which did not exist until then), of Carine Cridelich – defector from Racing Bulls – who becomes the head chief strategy officer, and Francesco Nenci, new chief racing engineer, a position left vacant following the promotion of Ayao Komatsu in January 2024. Other members have also been promoted internally: the case of Andrea de Zorda, confirmed as technical director last year, or even Davide Paganelli, who becomes responsible for aerodynamics.
Earlier this week, in a press conference organized at the Bambury base to present these changes in the technical organization chart, Ayao Komatsu justified this major reshuffle to fill in the gaps from last season. “Our technical team based at the factory has remained really stable, explains the Japanese leader. What has changed is the racing team. It's a huge change, but I felt like it was one of our weak points last year. The more competitive the car became, the more exposure it received. We lost too many points because of on-track operations. So we really had to raise the level on this point. (…) It has very often happened that, under pressure, we have not acted as well as we should have. But again, it's not just about people, it's also about the training we can give them. »
The Haas VF-25 presented on February 16
In addition to the presentation of the new engineering team, Haas also revealed the date of the first run of the future VF-25. The new American car will take to the track for the first time on February 16, at Silverstone, for a day of promotional filming. Esteban Ocon will be the first to take the wheel, before being imitated by Oliver Bearman the following days.
-“We will run Esteban, because in terms of installing the driver it is more difficult [avec lui], points out Ayao Komatsu. We just want to make sure that Esteban's installation is 100% perfect. This way, if we have a problem, we have more time to react. With Ollie we are quite confident. We're pretty confident with Esteban as well, but we're more confident in Ollie's setup than Esteban's. »
Remember that Haas has already taken to the track in 2025 with its first day of TPC (“Testing of Previous Cars”) organized in Jérez, Spain, with the VF-23 from the 2023 season. Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman were then accompanied by Toyota driver Ritomo Miyata, tipped to be Haas' reserve driver in 2025, although this remains to be confirmed.
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