With a growing presence of big-name manufacturers and investors in Formula 1, Haas are increasingly an anomaly. Limited financial resources, resulting in a lack of development infrastructure and relatively small workforce, mean Haas have access to fewer tools than rivals.
Despite this, they are cementing themselves as one of the most efficient teams in the midfield. Haas’ 2026 package, the VF-26, showed promising signs in pre-season testing. The American team looked in good shape heading into Australia, with a sensible chassis complimenting a strong Ferrari engine.
Still, Oliver Bearman’s 7th place in Melbourne went above expectations.
Haas leave the first round with six valuable points, which puts them 5th in the constructors’ standings. With Haas already well-positioned to fight for the unofficial title of ‘best of the rest’, the man behind their resurgence – Ayao Komatsu – deserves to be put under the spotlight.
Haas do more with less
It was shortly after Ayao Komatsu became Haas team principal (in the early months of 2024) that he articulated Haas’ shortages compared to other outfits across the field:
“With our small workforce, we always have to weigh up whether the work on the weekend is worth sacrificing the work on Monday.
“I’m sure people find this strange, but that’s where we are. We have less than 300 people. The team with the second-fewest [number of staff] has more than twice as many.
“We are constantly increasing the number of employees, but that doesn’t happen overnight.”
Given that other midfield teams like Williams (who are starting 2026 with a far worse package than Haas) employ close to 1,000 personnel, Haas are doing exceptionally well to optimise their limited resources.
Of course, Haas do benefit from buying certain components – such as the engine and gearbox – from Ferrari. With that said, this alone does not explain how the VF-26 is performing at the very top of the midfield.
Cadillac are also a Ferrari customer team, but find themselves several seconds behind Ayao Komatsu’s squad. With Cadillac still adapting to Formula 1 in their first ever season, this is not necessarily a fair comparison.
In any case, the convergence of these teams demonstrates the difference between how effectively two customer teams are optimising the chassis and aerodynamic side. What makes this different even more notable is the split development that Haas worked on in the second half of 2025.
Unlike most other teams, Haas continued developing last year’s package in the final months of the season. This meant that wind tunnel hours and engineers (already in limited supply) were divided between 2025 development and the 2026 regulations.
Therefore, Komatsu’s technical department deserves huge praise for putting together a highly efficient package. Given how much the likes of Williams spoke about their focus on this regulatory cycle, Haas have quietly gone about their business and – once again – punched above their weight.
The subject of power unit optimisation is quickly emerging as a significant one in 2026. At a fundamental level, the ability for customer teams to understand and exploit the engines provided by their suppliers can have a massive impact on performance.
In this sense, Haas are again exceeding expectations – with Ayao Komatsu commenting that electrical efficiency and energy harvesting of the Ferrari engine’s battery is going smoothly at this stage.
Moreover, given the compressed time period of Haas’ 2026 development, the VF-26 is by no means the finished article. Whilst serving as a solid baseline, their existing package has plenty of scope for development over the coming months.
Crucially, Haas are not battling with any fundamental issues, such as excess weight or troublesome reliability. With these basic areas under control, Komatsu’s personnel are in a good position to begin focusing on the intricacies of these 2026 cars.
Komatsu reflects on Australian GP
Ayao Komatsu was understandably buzzing after the team’s strong start to the season. Whilst these are obviously early days, it seems reasonable for Haas to aim for a top 7 finish in the standings this year.
Even securing 5th place in the constructors is not out of the question. In any case, Haas have only finished 7th or higher on two occasions in their history (2018 and 2024), so early indicators suggest 2026 could be one of their best campaigns in F1.
In his post-race declarations, Komatsu praised the team’s work:
“First and foremost, a big congratulations to everyone. This journey has been hugely challenging, not just over the last few months.
“But throughout the development phase as we were working on the VF-25 and VF-26 in parallel, which wasn’t the case for everyone else.
“There were mixed emotions after qualifying yesterday – it was a solid result, but we could have done better.
“Today we focused on the basics, ran our own race, made the right calls at the right time and the pit stop crew delivered.
“The race was a brand-new challenge in terms of managing energy, which I think we handled as well as we could, learning with every lap.
“To come away with P7 for the team is unbelievable – only beaten by the top four teams – I’m so proud of everyone. We have a huge learning curve over the next few races, but I don’t think we could have started the year any better.”
What next for Haas?
Given the influx of manufacturers and heavy-hitters in Formula 1, it would have been reasonable to question Haas’ long-term chances of staying competitive. After all, the emergence of big names like Audi and Cadillac could see Haas increasingly outnumbered.
To some extent, the start of 2026 has shown that big names have no guarantee of success. If anything, the early struggles of Aston Martin Honda, Cadillac and Williams are evidence that ambitious projects are susceptible to hitting stumbling blocks.
Still, this does not mean Haas can increase their ceiling without further investment. Even in a best-case scenario, they are somewhat limited to the midfield in their current state.
By extension, it stands to reason that some of the struggling teams – such as Aston Martin – can rebound from their tough starts and begin climbing the field.
In this sense, Haas are conscious that reinforcements are necessary. This is surely why Ayao Komatsu has very shrewdly reached an agreement with Toyota. The Japanese giant is now Haas’ title sponsor, representing the growing integration between the two.
Haas and Toyota are deepening their cooperation on research and development, which includes join initiatives on Haas’ F1 project. At its core, this partnership gives Haas access to an increased number of staff to draw upon.
Toyota’s growing involvement is evidenced by the participation of some of their drivers – such as Rio Hirakawa – in Free Practice sessions with the American team.
Over time, this alliance could strengthen and help compensate for the structural deficiencies Haas suffer from. Despite this, the evidence continues to suggest that Haas are more than capable of holding their own with restricted tools.