Technically headquartered in North Carolina but with the primary engineering facility at Banbury, Oxfordshire. A genuinely transatlantic operation.
Haas has only ever been Haas. The name is the American NASCAR team owner who built the F1 operation from scratch in 2016.
The team that proved a new entry could be midfield-competitive from year one, if you choose your partner carefully enough.
2016: The Most Impressive Debut in Recent Memory
Haas F1's maiden race at Melbourne 2016 produced sixth and eighth place. This was not remotely expected. New F1 teams historically spent multiple seasons in the lower midfield before establishing themselves competitively. The Ferrari technical partnership — allowing Haas to use Ferrari-designed components right up to the limit of what FIA regulations permitted — compressed the normal development curve. Romain Grosjean scored the team's first points in their first race. It was the best debut performance by a new constructor since the 1999 season.
2018: The Good Year
Haas's fifth season was their most consistent — fifth in the Constructors' Championship with Grosjean and Magnussen both scoring regularly. The upgraded Ferrari power unit gave them top-level engine performance and the aerodynamic package was well-resolved enough to extract maximum value from it. The team was genuinely best-of-the-rest during certain stretches of 2018. It's the season Gene Haas points to as validation. Gary's model uses it as the baseline for what Haas can be at their best.
2019–2020: Rich Energy and the Spiral
The Rich Energy title sponsorship — announced with some fanfare for 2019 — became one of Formula One's stranger subplots. The sponsor's CEO began posting social media content alleging breach of contract while simultaneously claiming victories that hadn't happened. The partnership ended mid-season. The Rich Energy saga was more entertaining than the racing, which was not among Haas's finer periods. The car had not kept pace with the development cycles of better-resourced rivals.
2021–2022: Schumacher, Mazepin, and the Russian Situation
2021 was a development year by design. The team ran Nikita Mazepin — whose father's company Uralkali was the title sponsor — and Mick Schumacher, bringing the Schumacher name back to Formula One. Mazepin's 2021 performances were frequently in the news, rarely for driving reasons. He and his sponsor were removed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The humanitarian and commercial decisions made in those 72 hours were swift. Magnussen returned to fill the seat. The 2022 car was competitive early in the season before development focus shifted.
2023–2026: Hulkenberg, Bearman, and the Ferrari Future
Nico Hulkenberg joined in 2023 and immediately improved the team's technical feedback quality and race-day decision-making. Oliver Bearman was drafted in for the 2026 season alongside Hulkenberg. At the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix, Bearman was caught in the closing-speed incident at Turn 7 Suzuka — a 50G impact that was directly attributable to the ERS deployment differential. He was released from hospital the following Tuesday and was back in the car at Miami four weeks later. The incident triggered FIA emergency regulation changes and made Bearman, briefly, the most-discussed driver in the sport. His results since have been competitive.
Haas's technical model is unique: maximum Ferrari partnership within the letter of the regulations.
2016
The Ferrari Partnership Model
Haas operates closer to a Ferrari customer than any other team on the grid while technically remaining a constructor. They use Ferrari's power unit, gearbox, hydraulics, and suspension uprights — the latter being listed parts that teams can purchase. What makes Haas unique is the depth of integration: the car is designed around Ferrari components at a level that compresses their development cost significantly. Gene Haas has described the model as 'building a team that can compete without having to reinvent every wheel.' The FIA has been satisfied the arrangement is within the regulations.
2022
VF-22 — The Ground Effect Starting Point
Haas's 2022 car was unusual for a team of their resource level: it was competitive early in the season. The ground effect regulations reset created a baseline that Haas's Ferrari partnership allowed them to hit faster than expected — the technical architecture from Ferrari permeated the underfloor concept in ways that a team designing entirely independently couldn't have matched. The development rate after the early season was, as with most Haas seasons, constrained by budget.
Rich Energy, Mazepin, and the Russian situation. Three very different types of off-track drama.
2019
Rich Energy: The Sponsor That Wasn't Quite
Rich Energy announced their Haas title sponsorship for 2019 with the kind of bravado that Formula One sponsorship usually requires. The CEO, William Storey, then began posting social media content claiming Haas had 'breached' the contract, claiming victories in legal proceedings that had not been concluded, and generally conducting a brand campaign that suggested the legal department hadn't been fully consulted. The sponsorship ended mid-season. The court case over the Rich Energy brand name (which may or may not have been related to a Whyte Bikes logo) was resolved in Whyte's favour. The season continued.
2021–2022
Mazepin: Pay Driver, Performance Questions, Geopolitics
Nikita Mazepin joined Haas in 2021 with Uralkali — his father Dmitry's fertiliser company — as title sponsor. His 2021 driving generated numerous incidents with other drivers. His social media presence generated a petition from Haas fans before the season began. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made the sponsorship untenable within hours. Mazepin was removed from the team before the first race of 2022. The team said the decision was motivated by the impossibility of continuing the commercial arrangement.
The Paddock Breakdown
Barry · Gary · KatGary Finch
The Ferrari correlation model shows Haas results within 0.6% of what the Ferrari-derived baseline predicts. They don't underperform their equipment.
I've built a model that correlates Haas's qualifying positions against Ferrari's in the same session. Between 2018 and 2024 the average gap is 5.3 grid positions. That's consistent with a team using the same base architecture but with a development budget that's roughly 15% of Ferrari's. The interesting statistical question is whether the Bearman Suzuka incident has been a net positive for the team's championship points. The answer, on current evidence, is marginally yes — the attention brought commercial interest, the performance has continued. Gary's moral system doesn't weigh in on whether this is the correct way to accumulate points.
Kat Moreno
The Ferrari partnership model answers an interesting regulatory question about what 'constructor' means in modern F1.
The FIA defines a constructor as a team that designs its chassis and tub. Haas designs its chassis and tub. Everything else — power unit, gearbox, suspension geometry derived from Ferrari's uprights — comes from the partnership. The argument that this is too close to being a customer team has been made repeatedly. The FIA's position is that the regulations permit it. What's technically interesting is that the correlation between Haas's aerodynamic development and Ferrari's — they share wind tunnel research time under the partnership — means Haas's floor philosophy tracks Ferrari's more closely than rivals. When Ferrari finds an aerodynamic concept, Haas benefits. When Ferrari has a development winter, Haas has a development winter.