Founder of Haas Automation, Haas CNC Racing NASCAR team (now Stewart-Haas Racing) and Haas F1 Team, Gene Haas talks about the upcoming season, Formula 1’s popularity in the States, Ferrari and getting to know the sport’s garage.
So, Formula 1 – does it all feel more real to you now?
Yes, it’s been a long time coming. We need to go race. I don’t feel anxious or think we’ve had plenty of time. We’re prepared. We’ve gotten all of our haulers and everything’s ready to go. Everything’s happening just as its planned and that’s what’s good.
Going from the US to an international based series – how does that work?
It would be extremely difficult if we didn’t have all the help from our team members. A lot of the members that we hired are from that area, basically, northwest of London. Almost everybody we’ve hired knows the routine, they know how to do it.
We’ve gotten a lot of help from Ferrari, they’ve helped us with suppliers, saying “here’s what you want to do here”. So we haven’t been just out in the cold.
How would you compare the cost of fielding four Cup cars instead of two Formula 1 cars?
I think it’s about the same, except it’s a two-to-one ratio. The four Cup cars cost as much as the two Formula 1 cars run.
We found out that there are different ways of doing things that would be a lot quicker and more productive, so we immediately switched courses.
How are you dealing with working out of three locations (US, UK and Italy)?
In this day and age, it’s pretty uncommon for companies to have one location, so I think that having Kannapolis, Banbury and Italy is not that spectacular. We have a lot of direct communications with them, we have video conferencing. I speak to everybody almost once a week if not visually seeing them and monthly trips there.
When we first started off we had a concept that we were going to do everything in house. But once we became involved and became a little bit more of a serious contender, some doors started to open up and relationships were built. We found out that there are different ways of doing things that would be a lot quicker, faster and more productive. So we immediately switched courses.
What do you see in NASCAR that you can apply to Formula 1?
I think from NASCAR, the one thing we’ve learned is simply how to run a race team: how to manage inventory, how to keep track of costs, all those things are vital to any race team. I think those are the basis for starting Formula 1. Immediately when we went into Formula 1 we could have taken outside people and said “hey, we want you to do this for us”. But we have done all that ourselves as far as managing the company, resources, what we want to buy. I think Kannapolis is a perfect example. As soon as we found a better way of doing something, we’ve reversed course and we’re going to do it that way. We’re not going to spend time and waste money doing something that somebody else can do better.
Where did you hire people like engineers? Will they be local or American?
I think we have 20 or so people working in Kannapolis that are working exclusively on CFD. In Banbury we’ve hired most of the mechanics there. I think there is something like 80 people there. Now we have people working at Dallara, 15 or so, and people working at Ferrari. Almost everybody that’s come on board has had prior Formula 1 experience all the way from the bottom to the top. Guenther‘s been involved in Formula 1, so knows that better than anybody else.
Is the benefit for Haas Automation worldwide exposure?
Absolutely, I think being able to be in Formula 1 says a lot because we’re in the ultimate sport of racing cars, and I think it gains a lot of respect. As long as we run decent, I think that will reflect on our ability to produce machine tools, and that’s the message we want to get across.
What will you work on during the season?
Well, mostly we’re going to be working on intellectual property, that is the CFD chassis development. As time goes on, we’re learning. The more we can do in Kannapolis, we’ll bring everything over. But there is no timetable or any rush to do that. The primary purpose is to race cars and that’s what we’re focusing on.
New Formula 1 teams have typically struggled. Do you think you’ll experience similar struggles?
Yes, they’ve struggled immensely. However, we don’t want to struggle, we’re here to simply race cars, and racing in the back is not one of our purposes. So our goal is to get our walking legs, learn how the sport works. I don’t think anything people do in a Formula 1 garage is that much different from what they do in NASCAR. Some people do say Formula 1’s a lot harder, and that may be true, but the expectation here is that we have to learn how it all works, and learning usually comes easy to us.
How will the partnership with Ferrari help you?
We are going to have the latest engine they’ve developed. They’ve shown me where they’re moving oil pans and cans and everything and they’re going “oh, we’re going to do this and put that over here”. I know they’ve put a lot of time in development. They build engines and dyno a lot of engines. They’re serious about winning. I think the parts that we get are going to be the best that Ferrari has.
Still, if it was that simple to buy the best parts and race a car and win, everybody would be doing it. Assuming you have the best car out there, you would still fail unless you thoroughly understand what goes into making that car run.
Read the rest of the interview with Gene on the next page
Is aero the most important area of the car for you?
Yes. Everybody will tell you that the place where you put your most effort is in aero. Pushing the car down is going to get you the best track increases in time. Then it comes down to suspension, and then it’s the engine package.
What is your goal for the first season?
Well, you know, I think our mid‑term expectation is to be able to show up at all the races. I’m expected to be within a couple of seconds of the leader, I don’t want to be five seconds behind him. If I can stay there for a while, I’ll be happy.
How can you minimise your learning curve in Formula 1?
We’re not here to prove that we can outthink the big teams. I mean, we cannot build better cars than Mercedes or Ferrari or Williams or Red Bull, these guys are the best in the world at what they do. So we’re looking at it from a standpoint, okay, we have to race these guys. What can we do that’s best?
The best thing for us to do is to have good equipment and hire the best drivers we can. Now we wanted to have an experienced Formula 1 driver simply for the fact we need someone that can tell us is our car any good? Is our set‑up right? We also need a driver that when we go to these different tracks is familiar with “here’s what we did last year”. I don’t want to talk to a driver that says “five years ago”.
We want to have an experienced driver, and that’s where Romain came in. Now he was in a different situation when he joined too. At the time, the Lotus team was on the verge of collapse, and now it’s been resuscitated. It wasn’t exactly what he thought, but now he’s taken a different career move.
Now as far as Esteban, he’s a Ferrari reserve driver, which gives him a lot of credibility as far as I’m concerned. Ferrari is very selective about who they put in that programme. So I feel comfortable about that, and he has current experience.
So how was the process of starting a Formula 1 team?
You know, like I’ve said before, it’s a learning experience. When we first started like a year and a half ago, we had nothing. We started working on the Kannapolis building, with the expectation that we were going to build everything there. It turns out in November of 2014, we took a flight, Guenther and I over to England and we were going to look at facilities, and it became apparent to us the old Banbury facility of the old Marussia team was available. Okay, what do you think? This thing’s ready to go, let’s just get this.
If you want to get a model built quickly, the people that can do that are Dallara which is about 100 miles north of us and they’ll get the model going really quick. So it’s kind of like you’re in a pinball machine – you just bounce off this, you bounce off that.
I can say that the car we have is going to be a very competitive car.
I know a lot of time has come into developing this car, especially on the aero side of it. We’ve had the extra time to do the CFD, the wind tunnel examinations. We’ve spent a lot of time on the radiators getting those to work. Ferrari has given us a lot of data as far as heat rejections and inputs on how the new engine’s going to be.
Racing in the back is not one of our purposes.
How have American race fans viewed your entry into Formula 1?
Americans, at least a core group of them, want to see racing. I think people like it, whether it’s Indy Racing or drag racing or NASCAR racing or Formula 1. You’re going to have a certain portion of the population watching it, let’s just say it’s around 20%. Well, that’s still 70, 80 million viewers – that’s a hell of a number. I think that even tiny percentages are going to be beneficial to racing.
I’ve watched a lot of sports and to be honest with you, I find racing more exciting than say football and baseball. So I can’t imagine why Formula 1 wouldn’t be successful here if it’s put in the right formats and people understand what the teams are doing and all the controversy we’ve had in the last few years as far as Formula 1.
Racing has always been a big part of Haas Automation, hasn’t it?
Yeah, my CNC business manufacturing kind of started with racing. I used to machine a lot of race car parts. My first jobs in a machine shop were machining magnesium racing wheels for a company called LeGrand Race Cars out in North Hollywood.
So it’s just been part of my DNA and almost all of the competitors manufacture all these little wonderful widgets and aluminium billet parts that go on race cars. Hence to me, an integral part of racing is simply making things.
