Ayao Komatsu spent part of this week driving a car older than some of his own mechanics, and it might be the most fun anyone at Haas has had all season. The team boss climbed into a 1990 Footwork Arrows A11B ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, a nostalgic detour that says a lot about Monza’s pull on the paddock and rather less flattering things about where Haas currently sits in the pecking order.
The A11B is a proper piece of F1 history: an evolution of the Ross Brawn-designed A11, powered by a 3.5-litre naturally aspirated Ford Cosworth DFR V8, and driven back in 1990 by Michele Alboreto, Alex Caffi and Bernd Schneider. It was not, by any objective measure, a great car. It scored points precisely once in period, when Caffi finished fifth at the 1990 Monaco Grand Prix. Everywhere else, it was making up the numbers. There is something fitting, if unintentional, about Komatsu choosing that particular chassis for his lap of honour.
A Home Race With Sentimental Value
Monza matters to Haas in a way most rounds do not. The team’s design office is based in Maranello, and the Italian Grand Prix doubles as a chance to parade the people who build the car in front of the people who actually get to watch it race.
“The Italian Grand Prix is always a special one for us with our design office located in Maranello, Italy. We take the opportunity to welcome many of our team-mates to Monza and have them experience what they are working for every day, and enjoy the atmosphere, which is truly special.” – Ayao Komatsu
That’s the sentimental version. The practical version is that Haas arrives at Monza having gone six rounds without a single point, and no amount of vintage Cosworth V8 nostalgia changes that.
The Numbers Tell a Different Story
Haas started 2026 reasonably well, scoring in five of the opening six rounds. Since then, nothing. The team sits seventh in the constructors’ standings on 21 points, a number that has not moved in some time while Racing Bulls, Alpine and the rest have kept ticking over. Komatsu himself did not pretend otherwise.
“We’ll be arriving in Italy keen to put a frustrating weekend in Zandvoort firmly behind us. There were positives for sure operationally, but ultimately, we were still looking to find more performance from the VF-26.” – Ayao Komatsu
Translating the diplomacy out of that: the car isn’t quick enough, and everyone at Haas knows it. An upgrade package has arrived at Monza to try to address that, which Komatsu was at pains to stress needs to be squeezed for every available data point across a practice programme that has, so far, offered little encouragement.
Practice Pace Hasn’t Helped
Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon spent Friday and Saturday morning proving the point for him. Bearman went 14th and eighth across the first two sessions before slipping to 14th again in final practice, while Ocon languished in 18th, 18th and 17th. Neither result suggests a car about to break its scoring drought, though Monza’s long straights and low-downforce demands have a habit of scrambling the usual form book, and Haas has form for finding pace late in a season.
Bearman’s Ferrari Engine, and the Bigger Picture
Haas’s Monza weekend has already produced one story with a sharper edge than a heritage car outing, as covered in our piece on why Bearman rather than Ocon gets the new Ferrari power unit this weekend. Ferrari could only supply one of its shiny new home-race engines, and Komatsu’s team had to choose who benefits. That decision matters more to Haas’s immediate future than anything from 1990.
It’s worth remembering, too, that Haas isn’t alone in searching for answers at a track that has exposed weaknesses across the field. Red Bull has had its own miserable Friday, and Ferrari’s home-soil upgrade has drawn scrutiny too, with Hamilton openly questioning whether it’s enough, as detailed in our report on Ferrari’s Monza pace concerns. Monza has a way of humbling everyone, not just the midfield stragglers.
Long Season, Longer Memory
Komatsu pointed to last year as proof Haas can find performance deep into a campaign, and there’s no reason to dismiss that outright. But hope is not a strategy, and six races without a point is the kind of run that starts to define a season rather than punctuate it. The second half of the calendar is relentless, as Komatsu himself acknowledged, which leaves precious little room for a team stuck on 21 points to simply wait for form to return.
“The races in the second half of the season come thick and fast, which is great, but it’s a challenge for sure. We showed last year that we can continue to find performance deep into the season, and that’s our continued focus.” – Ayao Komatsu
Driving a 34-year-old Footwork around a circuit is a genuinely charming way to mark a home-adjacent race weekend, and nobody begrudges Komatsu his moment behind a Cosworth V8. But charm doesn’t fill a scoreboard. Qualifying at Monza gets underway at 14:00 UTC on Saturday, check the calendar for your local time, and it’s the current-spec VF-26 that needs to start delivering, not the one from three decades ago.
