(Motorsport-Total.com) – Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu admits that the team has no idea where the problem lies in Esteban Ocon’s car. The Frenchman had repeatedly complained in recent months about his VF-26, which is said to be slower than that of teammate Oliver Bearman and struggles with sometimes strange and inconsistent characteristics.
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Komatsu then defended Ocon and emphasized that it is therefore difficult to properly assess the performances of the two drivers against each other. But how to solve the problem with the Frenchman, he still does not know.
“For some things, we can precisely pinpoint where it comes from, and we can fix it. But if you don’t exactly understand where it comes from, it’s obviously difficult – then you can’t solve it,” says the Japanese, who also emphasizes that the fluctuating quality of the cars does not only affect Ocon. “It happens to both cars at different times.”
Asked if it is due to the manufacturing quality of the parts, he shrugs. “Honestly: If I had the answer to that, we would have solved it, right? Certain things that we identified, we have solved, but we still have problems, right? So honestly, at the moment I have no answer to that.”
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According to Komatsu, even a complete disassembly of the car and an intensive examination of every part would not be successful: “Then we would know by now if that were the solution. We disassemble the car all the time,” he emphasizes.
For Haas, solving the problem is an absolute priority anyway, “because it is very, very important to have this consistency,” the team principal knows. “You have to be able to trust that you can screw parts with the same specification or the same assembly onto the car and expect the same behavior.”
“That is something we really need to solve quickly, as quickly as possible, and get under control.”
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