Haas will reveal its 2025 F1 challenger alongside the rest of the F1 grid in London on February 18. But the team is also expected to host its own launch event too — although the date and location is currently unknown — which will mark the beginning of an exciting new era for the American outfit.
The team showed signs of improvement in 2024, as Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg — helped by a mid-season technical partnership with Toyota — combined to score 58 points and elevated the team to seventh in the constructors’ standings.
In an effort to keep the team moving forward, both drivers have been replaced for 2025. Esteban Ocon joins from Alpine and will partner promising rookie Oliver Bearman — who completed several FP1 outings for Haas in 2024, and drove in place of Magnussen at races in Azerbaijan and Sao Paulo.
The pair are set to appear in a Test of Previous Cars (TPC) session at Jerez in mid-January, alongside Toyota GAZOO Racing driver Ritomo Miyata, as the team sets its eyes on the front of the F1 midfield in 2025.
Haas 2025 F1 car live stream
You can watch the live stream of Red Bull’s 2025 F1 car launch here.
2024: A hint of improvement
Haas were, at times, kings of the F1 midfield in 2024
Haas
After another disappointing campaign in 2023, Haas elected for managerial changes in 2024: replacing long-term team principal Guenther Steiner with Ayao Komatsu.
Every 2025 F1 car launch date announced so far, plus details of the livery reveal where all ten teams will unveil their new look at the same live event in London’s O2, featuring all of next year’s drivers and team principals
By
Cambridge Kisby
The switch ultimately proved fruitful for the American outfit, as despite fair warning from Komatsu that the team would struggle for performance, both Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg were almost instantly competitive against midfield rivals.
Point-scoring finishes in Saudi Arabia, Australia, China and Miami saw the team take a hold of sixth-place in the constructors’ standings early on, before a double DNF in Monaco and a subsequent run of poor form saw the likes of RB and Alpine close the gap.
But the team soon bounced back, as Hülkenberg finished a brilliant sixth in Austria and Great Britain while Magnussen finished eighth in the former race to reaffirm Haas’ place near the top of the midfield.
After another top ten finish for Hülkenberg in Singapore, Haas announced its technical partnership with Toyota, which seemingly resulted in an immediate performance boost, as the team collected more points in the US, Mexico City, Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi.
However, a critical disqualification and a DNF in Qatar for Hülkenberg ultimately put sixth in the constructors’ standings out of reach.
2025: Another step forward?
Haas is fully focused on the future
Getty Images
A change in philosophy focused around communication, courtesy of Ayao Komatsu, looks to be the driving force behind Haas’ resurgent 2024 campaign. But can it take the American outfit one step further in 2025?
Ayao Komatsu has been appointed as Haas’s new team principal, replacing Guenther Steiner. But as Chris Medland asks, does he face an uphill battle against a team owner who doesn’t realise what it needs to succeed?
By
Chris Medland
The team arguably has all the tools it needs: two talented drivers, an effective team boss and the backing of a major automotive giant in Toyota. But making it all work coherently will likely be a tall order in 2025.
“If everybody understands what they’re contributing towards the sporting result because, at the end of the day when you work for an F1 team, the ultimate goal is to get the result on track,” said Komatsu. “So it doesn’t matter if you’re a communication person or race engineer or HR, what they do every day is contributing towards the end goal.
“My philosophy is trying to make sure everyone understands that, and everyone can see what they do every day in how they are contributing to the end performance. I take you back to the communication. If you’re working together as a team, then you stand a chance of understanding what the real car issues are, right? But if you’re not working as a team, communicating what the real issues are, people are not working on the correct things.
“Honestly, I always thought that was the case for a long time, actually. I think this year proved that, as long as we discuss it on the table openly, without any sense of blame culture or finger pointing in each department, what we think is the problem of the car… discuss it openly and then prioritise, then try out [solutions].”
Haas 2025 driver line-up
Esteban Ocon
Oliver Bearman
Esteban Ocon joins the team on multi-year deal
Oliver Bearman also awarded multi-year deal after being promoted from reserve into full-time race seat
Key personnel
Ayao Komatsu will hope to lead Haas in more successful direction in 2025
Haas
Team owner: Gene Haas
Entrepreneur Gene Haas founded his eponymous tool manufacturing company in 1983, and has since then built a hugely successful business empire.
So profitable has his venture been, that he has been able to fund not one but two motor sport teams, the Stewart Haas NASCAR squad from 2002, and the F1 outfit from 2016.
Team principal: Ayao Komatsu
Ayao Komatsu’s journey through numerous motor sport paddocks reads like something straight from a story book.
He began as a tyre engineer for British American Racing in 2003 before moving to Renault in 2006 to work as a performance engineer, where he worked with drivers such as Nelson Piquet Jr, Romain Grosjean and Vitaly Petrov.
Six years later, he became personal race engineer to both Petrov and Grosjean at Lotus — sharing a close bond with the latter as the pairing scored nine podium finishes across the 2012 and 2013 seasons.
Komatsu was then promoted to chief race engineer for 2015 — where his experience and knowledge helped the team earn a surprise podium at the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix — before moving to a newly formed Haas F1 team in 2016 alongside Grosjean.
Here, he served as the head of trackside engineering — while making fleeting appearances on Netflix’s Drive to Survive — and took over as team principal from Guenther Steiner ahead of the 2024 campaign.
