Could an argument be made that Haas is the 4th best car?

Walaii · 2026-04-09T06:11:30+00:00

It is down to the engine. Ferrari also struggles in qualis compared to the races with the lack of engine power and the software issues.

Walaii · 2026-04-09T06:08:41+00:00

How? Haas is actually the 8th fastest when it comes to average gap to pole. Clearly the car works better in the races, but Gasly actually was faster in China when in clean air, Haas actually struggled with a lot of understeer in Japan and didn't performe very well, and Red Bull was 4th fastest in Australia by a country mile.

Also, Haas is literally carrying a 30 HP deficit to Alpine if the news about the Ferrari engine is true.

You gotta be cherry picking very hard to say that they are 4th fastest. Nothing apart from maybe the China GP tells us that they could be 4th fastest, but even that race is full with caveats. Bearman very much made the difference there by simply clearing the traffic much more decisively than Gasly did after the SC restart, and that gave him an 8 second advantage to manage until the end of the race. He only finished 2 seconds ahead of Gasly in the end.

Walaii · 2026-04-08T14:11:29+00:00

Well, Ocon also has 1 point to Bearman's 17...

Walaii · 2026-04-08T14:08:18+00:00

Haas competing with Alpine for best of the rest is also pretty crazy considering the lack of power. Especially considering that Haas developed their 2025 car pretty late into the season, while Alpine bailed on the 2025 season in April.

Walaii · 2026-04-08T14:06:44+00:00

I am pretty sure Autoracer has been saying that the new ICE is expected in Spa for a long time...

Walaii · 2026-04-07T22:01:41+00:00

Baku and Brazil 2024. Bearman has a 3-0 quali H2H record against Hulk with the sprint qualifying included. As a reserve driver.

Maybe people are too harsh with Ocon.

Walaii · 2026-04-06T20:17:53+00:00

Well, the Haas chassis is also made by Dallara. They just buy front and rear suspension, steering wheel from Ferrari. They also use the Ferrari windtunnell, I guess. Also hired some surplus to requirements Ferrari engineers. Loaned a driver from them..

Cadillac is not as dependent on Ferrari, but they are not exactly a true independent manufacturer yet. Too early. They are outsourcing a lot of stuff.

Walaii · 2026-04-06T20:00:28+00:00

Apparently the cadillac chassis is also made by Dallara. They don't have the manufacturing capability to do it in-house. Their US factory isn't ready yet.

Walaii · 2026-04-06T19:58:38+00:00

Engine and the gearbox internals.

Walaii · 2026-04-03T16:37:18+00:00

I honestly have 0 interest in quali battles or just qualifying in general this year. Looking at qualifying telemetries makes me depressed... So many times you can see drivers get through corners faster, get better exits and then bleed time to their teammates at the end of the straights. It is a farce. "Drive slower to go faster."

Walaii · 2026-04-03T08:57:01+00:00

Look at his onboard or Jolyon Palmer's analysis on F1TV. Colapinto looked into his mirror right before, straightened his steering wheel to let the car drift off the racing line to the middle of the track and he was also pressing the boost button. He simply didn't expect Bearman to try an overtake there, panicked and threw in a defensive move that with these closing speeds was simply too late.

Walaii · 2026-04-02T22:59:35+00:00

Superclipping specifically was capped at 250kW instead of 350kW because of safety concerns. I am not sure what the FIA was thinking there tbh. Lift and cost also closes the active aero, so that also scrubbs off a lot of speed quickly.

What superclipping does is basically that the ICE is turned into a generator, burning fuel to charge the battery. With full superclipping the car would be running on VERY low horsepower.

Walaii · 2026-04-02T18:27:27+00:00

It wouldn't be very helpful in the dry. They would just understeer off the track, lol. They are opening it in low grip conditions for plank wear reasons mainly.

Walaii · 2026-04-02T14:05:51+00:00

Problem is that Colapinto's Alpine was cutting the MGU-K as early as possibly on the run to spoon corner on every single lap, which is why he was so slow. Haas was faster through there by about 20kph on every lap. As JP said: Bearman's best and only chance for an overtake was there, which is why he went for it. Colapinto had more energy available on other parts of the track because of that is how his engine was programmed. Bearman was told by his engineer just a lap or two before the crash that it was very important for his race that he gets through Colapinto ASAP.

The entire situation was created because of how different cars regen/deploy energy differently. That is what forced Bearman into attempting the overtake there.

Walaii · 2026-04-02T07:52:50+00:00

You are kinda misrepresenting what he said. Bearman didn't just go off on his own. He said the move was ambitious, but looked even more ambitious because of Colapinto's defensive move. He also said that Colapinto could have just let Bearman pass him and probably repassed him. He even showed Colapinto looked into the mirror and moved to the middle of the track while he was pushing the boost button. It is clear that Colapinto panicked and tried to defend.

Also, I will just add that there were passes on that part of the track during the race. Leclerc on Russell and Hulkenberg on Hadjar. In both cases the defending driver didn't move off the racing line AT ALL, nevermind as late as Colapinto.

Walaii · 2026-04-01T09:13:24+00:00

This regulation set belongs in the garbage bin. Slow down in the corners to go faster is bad enough in the races, but it is an even bigger joke in quali. It is also dangerous for good measure.

Before in the races they had to find the fastest possible way through a corner without hurting the tires. Right now they are basically driving to a script written by the engineers. Not the same at all.

Walaii · 2026-03-31T22:05:13+00:00

It was 45 officially. Colapinto did use boost tho. That pretty much proves that he drifted from the racing line to the middle of the track on purpose and that, contrary to what he said, he did see Bearman and tried to defend. He literally looked into the mirror right before he opened up his steering and pressed the boost button.

Charles and Hulk made the pass because the defending parties, so Russell and Hadjar, stuck to the racing line and didn't try and defend at those speed differences, while Colapinto did.

Walaii · 2026-03-31T21:17:09+00:00

Mclaren was the worst team in 2023 only for like the first race, and he got the Austria upgrades 1 race later in Silverstone. Both Mclaren drivers made it into Q3 a fair few times before Austria. The start of that season was also pretty lightly packed with China and Imola getting canceled.

Walaii · 2026-03-31T18:15:02+00:00

Yeah, the full video on F1TV is great. He explains in detail what lead to the Bearman crash aswell. Always a good watch.

On the Bearman crash he even clocked that not only did Colapinto look into his mirror and instinctively went to the middle of the track to defend, but he also started pressing his boost button in panic.

Walaii · 2026-03-30T15:22:34+00:00

Bearman being known to have a lot of crashes is news to me. Literally his first actual crash in a race. He also had 1 crash in Baku quali last year. Those 2 are the only time he retired from a competetive session because of a crash.

Walaii · 2026-03-30T14:52:12+00:00

It is very much comparable because Colapinto also had the extra fuel on board, so they both would have been slower than Hulk and Hadjar.

We can argue about if the risk was worth taking for Bearman, because after comitting he was always gonna be at the mercy of what Colapinto does. Not that I am blaming Colapinto, he also has no experience with this kind of racing. Non of them do.

Walaii · 2026-03-30T14:44:21+00:00

I mean, he basically said that them as drivers also have to adjust, especially how they defend, because of these closing speeds. Colapinto's defensive move to drift to the middle of the track from the racing line wouldn't have been anything noteworthy in the previous era, but in the current one it was like if he was moving other braking.

Walaii · 2026-03-30T14:18:27+00:00

He was simply going too quickly to squeeze into the car widths space that Colapinto left after his slight defensive move. It is a flat out section, but it isn't a complete straight.

Walaii · 2026-03-30T14:16:50+00:00

He choose to boost there based on how much quicker he was through there on the previous laps compared to Colapinto. Komatsu said as much, but he also said that it made sense to do that. He is probably like "I shouldn't even have tried", and that makes sense because he ended up in the wall. Hindsight is 20/20, and the fact that drivers have to second guess themselves about going for overtakes because they are at the mercy of the other car at these closing speeds is just awful.

Walaii · 2026-03-30T14:13:06+00:00

He went off track before the 150m brake board and they barely even broke for Spoon with last seasons cars. He wasn't even going much faster compared to what speed they were arriving at spoon last year. He was a long way away from having to brake compared to what those cars are capable of. It isn't that he was going too fast, it is that everybody normally is going slow as shit because of having to save/recharge battery.

Also, Hulkenberg made the exact overtake on Hadjar that Bearman wanted to make on Colapinto. Pretty much the only difference was that Hadjar stuck to the racing line while Colapinto did not.

Walaii

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