Haas has introduced a three-people compact F1 pitwall for the 2023 season which is saving them a good chunk of money.
In general practice, the F1 pitwall consists of six people but some opt for even more in the region of eight seats. Haas has had about six seats until last year, but for the 2023 season, they have decided to trim it down to just the three seats.
The pitwall will feature Haas team principal Guenther Steiner, director of engineering Ayao Komatsu and team manager Peter Crolla. There is no space for race strategists or race engineers of both Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg.
They will be mostly inside the garage overseeing the work. Teams like Mercedes and McLaren already practice this keeping the race engineers inside the garage. For a team like Haas, they are to save a lot of money, with an approx figure of $250,000 doing rounds.
In a cost cap era when 2023 has further dip in the budget to $135 million from $140, it is significant amount of money saved for Haas to use it in other areas. “When you need money to invest in development, look at everything, because we are at the cost cap,” said Steiner, when asked about the idea behind the trimmed pitwall.
“You have six people out there, or a quarter of a million on car updates? I know what we’re doing. The guys came up with that idea. They said ‘If I need to stay inside I have no problem doing that if I have no need to be there’.
“With three seats we can cover what we need to and we can rearrange. It’s mainly a saving to put that money into development because we are at the cost cap or a quarter million on transport costs,” summed up Steiner.
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