Haas has forged its own front suspension for the 2025 car, bypassing Ferrari's new pullrod design, despite its customer ties.
During Bahrain's pre-season test, the small American outfit shunned performance runs, trundling around notably slower with high fuel loads. "Our new car has retained the good qualities of the old one," team boss Ayao Komatsu told reporters.
He dismissed chasing quick laps: "What good is it to me if I know today whether we're fifth or eighth? I can't change anything until Melbourne because we won't have any new parts by then," he is quoted as saying by Auto Motor und Sport.
For 2025, Haas hits the budget cap ceiling for the first time. "We know where we want to spend the extra money, but we have to learn how to do it," Komatsu said. "We will end up with 350 employees and still hit the budget ceiling. But that is inefficient.
"Other teams have 900 employees and stay within the limit. We still have to learn how to spend our money efficiently—for example, how many parts should we buy at a set price and how many should we produce ourselves?"
While the rear suspension is fully Ferrari-supplied, the front is Haas-made.
"The (Ferrari) rear is a great advantage for the car," Komatsu said, adding: "It was obvious that we buy it from Ferrari."
As for the front, he explained: "The price would have been that we would have received the data from Ferrari for the front end very late," he revealed. "We would have lost too much time for the aerodynamic development. The bottom line would have been a disadvantage for us."
This choice reshapes the 2025 Haas, diverging visually from Ferrari's base with a visually unique nose, front wing, sidepods, and cooling setup.
