Haas overachieved in comparison with its pre-season targets in 2024 regardless of the late season disappointment of dropping out to Alpine for sixth within the constructors’ championship, in response to group principal Ayao Komatsu.
Alpine’s double-podium end in Brazil proved essential because it picked up 33 of its 65 factors in a single race at Interlagos, serving to it beat Haas within the standings. With Haas seventh forward of RB, Williams and Stake, Komatsu stated the way in which the ultimate outcomes panned out don’t overshadow the progress made throughout his first season in cost.
“After all we have been very disillusioned to not get P6, however we gave it all the pieces and it doesn’t simply occur at one occasion, it occurs over the course of the season, over the 24 races clearly,” Komatsu informed SiriusXM. “So ultimately, contemplating the place we’ve come from, we’ve performed an excellent job to get to P7 with so many factors.
“In the long run we scored 58 factors, and should you have a look at the final quarter of the season we scored 27, which by no means occurred earlier than. We at all times would rating within the first a number of races or as much as halfway, however hardly rating any factors within the second half of the season as a result of we couldn’t develop the automobile. However we put that proper, we developed the automobile all through the season very, very properly, and our automobile bought sooner and sooner and sooner.
“The Abu Dhabi qualifying session was the closest we’ve been to pole place – three tenths – and Nico [Hulkenberg] was solely eight hundredths from P2. So there’s heaps to be constructive about, and I’m joyful that folks acknowledge that within the group and are joyful that we overachieved what we got down to do earlier this 12 months.”
Komatsu stated he would undoubtedly have signed up for a seventh-place end within the standings at the beginning of the season, given what he had set the group as a objective for 2024.
“100%, as a result of the official goal for the group was P8,” he stated. “We needed to set a goal, proper? We don’t need to be lifeless final, and P8 was a sensible goal that we set to everybody. I keep in mind in January I stated ‘If we obtain P8 on the finish of the season we’ve performed very, very properly, as a result of who’re we going to beat?’ It’s worthwhile to beat two groups, who else are we going to beat?
“We’re the smallest group, we began this 12 months’s automobile late and stopped for a few months to do the Austin improve final 12 months, so we said from a fairly unfavorable place. How are we going to get to P8? That was the problem we set ourselves, and truthfully I feel the girls and boys did an incredible job, so I’m very happy.”
