Haas, the American F1 team, has exceeded their own expectations so far heading into the second race of the season. We'll hold off though on the congratulations, as they did expect to be dead last in the standings. They may not be quite in the points just yet, but have shown signs of progress given the start the F1 team has had.

Haas followed Ferrari with similar problems last season, specifically in tire degradation. The one lap speed of the Haas, both so far this year and last, has impressed us; with German driver Nico Hulkenberg being able to get the VF-24 into Q3 of qualifying in Bahrain. Unfortunately, due to a driver incident with Lance Stroll, Hulkenberg quickly fell to the bottom of the pack and finished P16 on race day.

But in this the car fell off in race pace, but not as drastically as last year. Their 2024 design seems to be better on tire management as Danish Kevin Magnussen was able to get his car only a couple positions out of the points. He qualified at P15 and pushed Haas to a P12 finish.

Heading into the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Haas will look to avoid early race incidents and try to take advantage in their one lap qualifying times to secure some points, even if they end up falling off the pace on race day.