Haas have had a strong start to the 2018 season but critics have labelled them as a ‘Ferrari replica’, as the Haas car is powered by the very strong and robust Ferrari VF17 engine.
Gene Haas has slammed all such critics as he feels the American Haas team isn’t being given credit for their work.
“When we’re doing badly, people will say that we’re just another stupid American team and when we’re doing well, it’s the Ferrari team.
“That’s not giving credit to the guys who work here. If you look at our car or anybody else’s car, our car is significantly different. Our radiator layout is different. The way our bargeboards work is completely different. Those things are definitely not copied from anybody. They are all designed in house.” Gene Haas said, as quoted by the official F1 site.
Haas specifically addressed the Haas-Ferrari relationship specifically and said that the team is being treated a little unfairly.
Force India, Williams, Toro Rosso too procure power units from suppliers in the F1 but they aren’t being labelled as replicas.
“If you look at other teams – Force India, Williams, Toro Rosso – they all have relationships with different engine manufacturers, transmission suppliers and component suppliers. We just happen to have a relationship which is more with a single supplier.
“It works, but I don’t think there’s any other way for a team to start up. These cars are unbelievably complex and to sit there and say I’m going to build one in the back of my workshop and go race with those guys, that’s just silly.
“Those days are long gone, you can’t do that anymore. In years gone by, you’d buy a chassis, you’d get yourself an engine and you’d basically buy the bits and pieces and go racing. We’re probably doing something akin to the original Formula 1…
“It works if you’re transparent and you pay your bills. We have a clear contract in place. We do what we promise to do and they do what they promise to do.
“We talked to Mercedes and Ferrari and they were both open to the exact same idea, we’ll sell you anything you want. That’s available today. If you want to go to Mercedes and buy components from them, I think they are more than happy to probably sell them to you. It’s good business for them. Ferrari makes good money.” Haas explained.
Haas is also excited about F1’s new era, as Liberty wants to bring about a more level playing field.
“The budget cap is a game changer.
“It will create a new raft of different winners, and I guess there will be some losers on the other side. Our biggest advantage is we’re adaptable to change quickly, because we’re new at it. The bigger more established teams have a harder time, they are like a big boat, they just don’t move quickly. We feel like that’s our advantage, we can adapt quickly.
“We didn’t invest a lot of money in infrastructure, R&D and design. The stuff we get has been designed over 20 years so we can take advantage of that. We don’t have any history tied to that so we can move on. All of a sudden, if a different part becomes available that is better, we can change immediately if we have to. Flexibility is our advantage,” Haas concluded.
