Haas made a “huge step forward” in its Barcelona Formula 1 test programme on Wednesday despite suffering two reliability issues – the second of which was “a bit more serious”.
Ollie Bearman stopped on track in the morning with a minor problem that was easily rectified - but Haas’s day ended early with a second, unrelated issue late in the afternoon.
It meant after completing more laps than any other team on Monday, the Ferrari customer team managed just 42 on its second day of running.
Despite that, team principal Ayao Komatsu suggested the quality of the work it completed was much improved as it worked through its test items in the laps it did run.
“We’d sorted out so many issues from Monday, so when we were running on track today, I could see a huge step forward compared to day one,” he said.
“That’s a big positive for us. Unfortunately, in both the morning and afternoon sessions, we had two reliability issues.
“I’m not worried about the one we had this morning, the one in the afternoon was a bit more serious and it’s obviously something we’re looking into and analysing exactly what happened – and of course, how to solve it.”
Neither issue is understood to be engine-related.
The silver lining is this happened relatively early in the team’s pre-season programme and now Haas needs to decide whether it conducts its third and final permitted day of running on Thursday or Friday.
As well as Komatsu praising the team’s improved operational performance, Bearman said Wednesday was the first time he could “push it on its limits, at least for what they were for the set-up being run today” and is “excited to see the car go through its paces more”.
“We had a bit of an interrupted day but we still got through some important items and learned some big things about this car,” said Bearman.
“It’s a shame on one hand, it’s the nature of these tests, but it’s good to get these things out of the way now as opposed to later.”
