After showing decent signs of progress in the first half of the 2024 season, Haas dropped a major headline of signing a technical partnership with Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR). Although Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu highlighted that this relationship with Toyota will be a long-term one, he has no plans of shifting the team’s base from the UK to Germany.
Switching Haas’ base to Germany will get them closer to Toyota since TGR are based in Cologne, Germany. “Not in the foreseeable future… At the moment at least, we are not changing our base in Maranello and our base in the UK,” the Japanese engineer replied when Christian Fittipaldi asked him about the same on the Pelas Pistas podcast.
Toyota’s partnership with Haas is huge for the American outfit as the Japanese manufacturer will be helping them on several fronts, including aerodynamics, CFD, and sharing expertise on the design and manufacturing of their cars. Komatsu also stated that for a team that is the smallest in F1, such a partnership with a motorsport giant is hugely valuable.
The 48-year-old mentioned how Haas only houses a staff of around 300 people, whereas the next highest staff count in the paddock is 1,000. In fact, top teams like Red Bull and Mercedes have over 1,200 to 1,300 people working for them.
So, Haas is currently punching above its weight, and Komatsu feels they need assistance from big manufacturers like Ferrari and Toyota as much as possible. The Japanese engineer also mentioned that the impact of this partnership with Toyota will not be visible immediately in the short term.
Toyota tying up with Haas tells me 2 things:
1. Japanese manufacturers feel responsible to represent Japan. Toyota badly wants Japanese drivers and engineers to get to #F1
2. A giant corporate manufacturer is tying up with a tiny F1 team for its engineering knowledge! Crazy! pic.twitter.com/xyGtnzDBJW
— Soumil Arora (@iamsoumilaroraa) October 11, 2024
It will take time for the Kannapolis-based outfit to maximize the tools and personnel at TGR’s Cologne facility to show any tangible gains on track. Besides, Komatsu and Haas also have to balance their existing partnership with Ferrari, who supply them the engines, gearboxes, suspensions, and hydraulics among other components.
With their partners operating from different parts of the world, Haas have one of the most complex structures.
Haas’ complex structure
Haas is one of the teams that has the most number of bases with multiple facets of their cars, operations, and facilities spread over three countries — which will become four owing to their new partnership with Toyota. Haas’ main headquarters is in Kannapolis, USA, with a satellite base in Banbury, UK.
They established the Banbury base to stay close to the European continent and all the F1 infrastructure since most teams are based out of the UK itself. Haas’ close ties with Ferrari have led to the development of their offices and facility in the Italian outfit’s Maranello base as well.
The American team uses Ferrari’s wind tunnel as well, besides all the parts they are supplied with. The last bit of complexity in Haas’ F1 structure is that it also takes help from Italian manufacturer Dallara to build and manufacture its cars.
Naturally, Komatsu would not want to further complicate this already mixed-up arrangement Haas have built over the years with another base in Germany. However, it seems like the Haas team principal is willing to untangle this mess and start to homogenize their technical structure with one major technical partner, depending on how their relationship with Toyota develops.
