How Toyota is helping transform F1’s smallest team
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How is Haas benefiting from its partnership with Toyota?
The race is on, and Haas has made a promising start to the new regulations, but now in its 11th season in F1, how is its Toyota deal helping the team to grow? And what realistically is its overall potential, given its unique setup and facilities? I'm Ed Straw, and joining me to talk all things Haas is Scott Mitchell-Mowne. Well, Scott, doing something a little bit different because we spent some time with Haas in various locations, actually in the gap between Miami and whatever the race before that was. It was a long time ago, Japan, that extended gap. So good chance to take a deep dive into one of F1's perhaps less heralded, but in many ways, most interesting teams.
Yes, Haas feels very much like a proper fixture on the grid now. Been around for a decade. But still, I think elements of its challenge and how it goes about its business are still quite misunderstood. I think that might also go for its eponymous team owner, Gene Haas, as well. We've often talked on this podcast about how Gene maybe has a slightly... Slightly optimistic view of how his team should be performing versus what resources it has and what investment it's had. And into a really interesting phase at the moment with obviously the fledgling Toyota technical partnership and probably its best driver pairing that it's ever had. So certainly had a good start to 2026. So loads to talk about and loads to see when we went on our respective jaunts.
What is the significance of the TPC program for Haas?
Absolutely. You visited the factory in Banbury, and a day later, I went to the Silverstone TPC test with Gary Anderson. We've already done a tech podcast that we recorded in the garage there at Silverstone, so you can find that in the Race F1 tech show. But we're going to be talking about other things, a little bit more the broader team. And we've got an interview, in fact, coming up later on with Pierre Genon, who is the Toyota project manager, who'll tell us more about that deal, because the whole Toyota thing is pretty significant. But First off, Scott, let's look at Haas's setup because they're sixth in the Constructors' Championship. Good start to the new regulations, dependent on that technical partnership with Ferrari.
So it gets as many of the latest spec transferable components as are permitted. Most of the car, except the aerodynamic parts, that means you've got the monocoque you've got to do as well and a few other key areas. But a lot of the architecture and the bits and pieces that you need to make an F1 car run but don't influence performance so much, plus things like suspension, that's Ferrari. It's also got the Dallara deal. More recently, Toyota. It's got the Ferrari design base as well. How big really is the Haas Formula 1 team?
How does the driver-in-loop simulator enhance Haas's performance?
Well, you can look at it in two ways because if you look at the... the core, I guess the... The full-time Haas personnel, it's a small F1 team. If you look at its design team, it's a very small F1 team. If you look at its production team directly employed by Haas F1, it's an almost non-existent F1 team with its outsourcing to various partners, Dallara being a key one early on and still very much a significant player in the Haas ecosystem, but not quite as exclusive as it once was. Because Haas has these dependencies, its entire existence was hinged on the Ferrari deal and then getting Dallara to do all of its production and the simulation work. That side of things has always been outsourced, basically.
So it's kind of been a lean, mean racing machine in terms of what it runs out of the Banbury headquarters in the UK. And then you have personnel from Ferrari seconded to the Haas team working out the Marinello facility and so on and so forth. But... All of that that I'm kind of touching on there is an example of how actually the Hastef One team is massive. It's a sprawling enterprise trying to make multiple sites work, effectively two core Italian components in that Marinello design facility and what's going on at Dallara, Banbury headquarters. It's kind of like the beating heart of the team. That's what a few people that I spoke to on the day described it as.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How is Haas benefiting from its partnership with Toyota?
0:02–1:45
2
What is the significance of the TPC program for Haas?
1:45–2:53
3
How does the driver-in-loop simulator enhance Haas's performance?
2:53–4:28
4
What production enhancements are being implemented through the Toyota partnership?
4:28–6:14
5
How does Gene Haas's ownership influence team performance expectations?
6:14–7:30
6
What future possibilities exist for the Haas-Toyota relationship?
7:30–8:36
7
Could Haas evolve into a Toyota works team in the future?
8:36–9:52
8
What challenges does Haas face in maximizing its potential?
9:52–1:00:22
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from The Race F1 Podcast
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