Rob Smedley, former racing engineer at Ferrari, has expressed doubts about Haas’s potential to become one of the leading teams in Formula 1. According to Smedley, the current structure of the American team limits its capabilities to compete at the highest level.
Haas joined the F1 grid in 2016, establishing a technical partnership with Ferrari that, while being an economical solution for entering the competition, has resulted in a decline in performance during the season. Smedley has commented that the team often struggles to keep up in the development race, which can limit its progress.
In an episode of the podcast High Performance Racing, Smedley provided a straightforward analysis of Haas’s 2026 season. While acknowledging the management of Ayao Komatsu, who replaced Guenther Steiner in January 2024, Smedley remains skeptical about the team’s business model capability. ‘With their current construction, they will never have the chance to be leaders,’ he stated.
Communicator Jake Humphrey, co-host of the podcast, shared his frustration with Haas’s performance, highlighting that the team often starts the season with a fast car but does not seem to develop it adequately. ‘Perhaps they lack the necessary resources to do so,’ Humphrey suggested.
Currently, Haas occupies the seventh position in the constructors’ championship with 21 points. Drivers Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon are in thirteenth and sixteenth positions respectively, with 18 and 3 points.
After scoring 17 points in the first two races, Bearman has struggled in the subsequent ones, with three retirements and only one point in the last nine races. Humphrey also praised Komatsu’s management style and expressed his wish to see him at the helm of a more competitive team, as well as Bearman in the grid of top-position drivers.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
