Why Haas not fully taking Ferrari car design cues matters for F1 2025

As Formula 1 fans await another launch season of fresh car design excitement, news coming out of Haas this week has provided early insight into how both the American squad and its main supplier, Ferrari, may fare in 2025.

When asked if his team was changing its front suspension design for this coming season – in a media roundtable attended by Motorsport.com – Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu laughed as he replied: “No.”

Komatsu knew exactly what was being referred to: the speculation that Ferrari had decided to make a major design change for the final year of the current regulations.

This is moving to a path Red Bull and McLaren (and to a lesser extent Racing Bulls and Sauber) used to great success in 2024 and running a pullrod front suspension.

The rest of the field including – Haas and Ferrari – had pushrod front suspension arrangements last year.

When Komatsu confirmed his team is sticking with that system again for 2025, his next words carried great significance for the Scuderia.

“That’s another significant moment in my mind,” he added. “Because so far in let’s say nine seasons of Haas F1 team [2025 is the squad’s 10th on the grid], we always went with Ferrari’s latest supply.

“And not because that was the informed choice, because that was the safest and the easiest choice.

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images

“It’s not like this year we wanted to make a point. Because they’ve been talking about this for the last few seasons, but we never actually did it in a way that carried over front suspension, for instance.

“But when [Haas’s technical team] looked at it properly in terms of, ‘OK, if we buy Ferrari’s latest 2025 front suspension, when are we gonna have information available, what [does] that mean in terms of aero hit?’

“Because when you introduce something like that, you have to take a hit first, right? Then you have to recover comparing that.

“And then how much potential that unlocks, comparing that against ‘don’t stop development because we carry over the front suspension’. How much potential is left in that?

“They’ve done the proper study. The conclusion was we should do a carryover.

“So, it’s good that we’ve done the proper study, then we had the confidence to then go for that decision. Whereas, before, we didn’t.”

But Haas is understood to still be taking significant design cues from Ferrari in 2025.

Sources suggest it is adjusting the area around its cockpit, as well as making its rear suspension and gearbox area shorter to remain within F1’s 3,600mm total wheelbase length rule from the front wheels to the rears.

But in not making such a major change at the front, Haas is banking on not losing time understanding how this may shift its aerodynamic platform at a time when it still needs short-term successes to secure fresh investment from owner Gene Haas.

This will be necessary to upgrade or indeed move away from its current Banbury base, with plans on this understood to be presented to Gene Haas at the end of January.

Esteban Ocon, Haas VF-24

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

In the crowded midfield, the prize money on the line this year when competing against Alpine, Williams, RB and Sauber means Haas just cannot afford to spend races lost on its car set-up.

What the mooted – but so far officially unconfirmed by the team – front suspension switch means for Ferrari is two-fold.

It puts it in line with Red Bull and McLaren in an area that can widen the ways in which teams nail the ride heights so critical for performance in this era – something that hurt Ferrari last year when it introduced a new floor in Spain.

But therein lies danger too. As Komatsu outlined, Ferrari may have to spend time it does not have working out the full impact of the changes when its 2025 challenger hits the track.

It does, however, possess the massive resources and staff level to be further down such a route based on simulation tools alone compared to the more limited situation at Haas, but 2024 showed how such a big team can still get things wrong.

Arguably, Ferrari lost last year’s constructors’ crown to McLaren as it had to spend the mid-season understanding where it had gone so wrong on floor development.

In the races post-Barcelona, its then-driver line-up of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz was losing confidence in high-speed corners with the rear ends of the SF-24s bouncing.

The task at hand for Ferrari is therefore how in trying to win big in 2025 with a significant potential change, it does not risk losing its current strong position with a major reset looming for 2026.

That’s another factor in why Haas is sticking with its existing front suspension arrangement in this case.