Are Ferrari engines going to hold up this year? There’s been a lot of talk this offseason about whether the Scuderia will deliver on the power unit front, but its customer team, Haas, is already running into trouble. With Toyota getting increasingly involved in the American outfit’s project, they’ll hope to put a strong challenger on track in 2026.
What went wrong this week?
Haas Runs Into Reliability Trouble With Ferrari Engines
It’s still Shakedown Week, so teams have time to round off the rough edges on their cars ahead of the season. This is the part of the campaign where most, if not everything, is still out of shape. Only after preseason testing should we expect finished products on track.
The issues Haas is running into, however, raise broader concerns. The team reported reliability problems with its Ferrari engines, raising questions about the quality of racing we can expect from everyone under the Scuderia umbrella this year.
Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu mentioned the power unit trouble they’ve encountered, noting one issue as a major problem.
“Unfortunately, in both the morning and afternoon sessions, we had two reliability issues,” he said. “I’m not worried about the one we had this morning, the one in the afternoon was a bit more serious, and it’s obviously something we’re looking into.”
Running into engine concerns is always troubling; however, losing track time in preseason runs is arguably even worse. Teams rely heavily on running their cars as much as possible to straighten out any wrinkles before the campaign starts. When a power unit’s lack of reliability hinders you from running your car, you’re immediately put on the back foot.
“Unfortunately, we had this reliability issue,” Komatsu said. “But nothing we cannot fix. But that obviously cost us lots of track time this morning. So we couldn’t get anywhere near as much running as we wanted to do.”
Haas notably recorded a solid day on track on Day 1, minimizing the effects of this latest setback.
“But to be fair, you know, we had a really good mileage on day one,” the team principal added. “So these kind of issues, it’s better to discover it now, you know, sooner than later. So that’s what testing is for. But I’m very pleased in the sense that the improvement we made from day one to the car and all the surrounding systems.”
Haas stayed within range of competing with Aston Martin and even the Racing Bulls in the midfield last season, so they’ll aim even higher this year.
As the offseason rolls on, it’ll be interesting to see how the American outfit’s car shapes up.
