P1 with Matt and Tommy - Our reaction to the Haas F1 car launch

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Drumroll please... some news even more seismic than Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari has just come in: Haas have released their livery for 2024."What's it like? What can they do to improve? Why are they here?" You have questions - we have answers.Subscribe to our brand new channel, 'Wheel Knowledge' right here!You can sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to exclusive episodes you won't hear anywhere else, every P1 episode ad-free, full driver interview videos, early access to tickets and more!Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P-1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. And today we have got more simple, more easy to digest, news to talk about. And of course, Tom Bellingham, it is one of the most wondrous events of the year, the Hasse F1 car launch. Otherwise known as the HASS F1 picture drop on Twitter. And the one minute video, Tommy, let's not forget the year. Yeah, but they went into that as well. That didn't work.

Yeah, we premiered, didn't we, on YouTube? And it was counting down for quite a significant amount of time. And then it went, thanks for watching. It was like, oh, okay. Yeah, and then we heard in our Twitch chat that everyone had already seen the images on Twitter. So that was fun. Yeah, it was brilliant. But then we watched it together, didn't we?

And we were both reasonably underwhelmed. But let's get our first thoughts out the way, shall we, Tommy? And, look, we're in Carl, launch season. It's, it's, you know, everybody has their own individual thoughts on what makes a livery good or bad. I think for me, what perfectly describes what the Hasse car is, is, it was one of the, it's probably the most boring, clean car. You probably see. Like, it looks good.

And if it was a unique one-of-a-kind thing, you'd go, oh, that's quite a, you know, I love the black, and then the accents of the white, and then the red. But we're very much in a part of Formula One where this is not, this is, this is normal. This is not any kind of sideways step when it comes to livery design. This is straight down carbon vibes with a bit of accents for the team branding. Yeah, the car itself, it's not too dissimilar to last year.

I think they've cleaned it up a little bit. They've got now even more carbon or black or whatever they're going to go with, but probably carbon, got rid of the white on the nose. You think they're going to paint it, mate? You think they're going to? No, they're definitely not going to paint it, are they? And I think you're right, a few years ago when this would have been really exciting. And I think when the cars were painted, throwback to three or four years ago,

which is a wild thing to think about now, and that's why it's kind of so annoying, I think it would have looked really, really cool. But, you know, we're probably, we may or may not see a black Mercedes, carbon Mercedes again. We've just seen a McLaren, which is going to be carbon with some orange on it. We're going to see steak on Monday, which I'm predicting already is going to be

a lot of carbon with some bright green lines on it. And it just makes you wonder that, yeah, it kind of loses that excitement. And it's not the most interesting colour scheme either, just white and red, similar to last year. So it does just feel a bit underwhelming, whereas it's so weird. weird because on the grid you look at it and it is underwhelming and you kind of feel like you

want to give it like a three or a four out of ten but if it was like you separated all the context everything else it's actually a really nice clean looking livery and they've done a good job with it but it is just just what they've got to deal with with this new regulations which I really hope it changes because I really don't want to see livery season just become this kind of, here's a carbon car with a line on it. Yeah, clean but underwhelming. And that's not what we look for in cars. Like you look back over the years of,

and the history in Formula One, you have such vibrant, distinguished cars. And now you're getting into an era that you'll look back and go, oh, that was a lot of carbon, oh, that was a lot of carbon. And it kind of takes away the... You don't even have to go that far back, do you? No, no. If you watch, like, the first series of Drive to Survive,

which isn't even that long ago, or like, yeah, was it first series? or second series, like, 2018, you had like a bright pink racing point, a bright orange McLaren, a bright yellow Renault, bright red Ferrari, or whatever. And the grid looked really cool. And then, yeah, now you're going to look at the whole starting grid and it will just be carbon cars with a slight bit of paint on, which is a shame. And also, it's not a hard fix. That's the thing. It's like you just mandate that everyone has to paint their car with a certain type of, where is it?

It's so simple. Surely it makes sense as well for sponsors because you can be a bit more creative with deliveries and therefore shout out particular brands that spend lots of money with the team. So for me, it's just... Well, look at BWT, like everyone roast them for the pink, but like we all know BWT.

It's like that shows that it's such a good marketing tool to make a really unique, bright, crazy colour. And everyone goes, oh, it's BWT. and you know exactly that, but when, yeah, you get like these carbon underwhelming cars, I bet if you ask people to name like five half sponsors about looking at the car now, you wouldn't be able to do it. So yeah.

Hopefully this will change, fingers crossed, because we want that identity between each team to be very, very clear. Now, the first sort of question that I think is probably on a lot of our minds around this and really we want to dive into this further. and it's how will Lewis Hamilton deliver at Ferrari in 2025? It is so true like that, that people

has just got so, I don't know, that they tried to do something by being the first to launch and, boy, slightly overshadowed, to say the least. Slightly. I almost went into how I think Lewis Hamilton will do, but that's not. for today. First question comes in from J.L. Rube. Is an underwhelming launch perfectly on brand for

Hass? Is this your burner account, Tomic? I know that you're loading up some slander on this team, so we'll wait to see when that one comes out. But I think it just, it is, I guess, on brand with where Hass are in the sense of they don't have the resource, the facilities, the place in order to maybe host a really amazing car launch. And they probably sit down at the start of the year or the end of last year and go, so what we're going to do for our car launch this year? Well, we don't really have any money to spare. And Gene has been on the phone telling us to save every penny.

So having mechanics dancing around with front wings and tires in their hands and doing all kinds of crazy stuff on our car launch for a car that is probably going to finish 10th in the constructors anyway is probably not the best use of our resource and money. So yes, it is on brand. I think it very much reflects on where Hasse are at the moment and I didn't expect anything more from them. It's just, it's just a bit sad. Obviously, we have had McLaren release their livery as a picture, but I guess this is technically the first car launch, if you want to call it that. I don't know why they'd want to be first, because there's nothing really to talk about when they don't really shout about it. But I guess on the

flip side of that, they want their images blown around everywhere for people to talk about it. But not the catchiest of livery to maybe keep the conversation going for very long. No, like you say, it is underwhelming, say the least, which like this person says, is perfectly on brand for Haas. They don't seem to sort of push the boat out. And it's a shame because, like you say, I've mentioned that I'm going to sort of slander him a bit. But it's not, it's not the, I feel sorry for the people that are there working in the team because it's no disrespect to them because they're doing everything they can. But what frustrates me is we've just seen Andretti, for example, have their bid rejected. And Andretti are a, you know,

legendary name. They've won in everything that they've competed in. They're clearly putting so much effort to the point where they were literally like, we've got a car from 2025 and they were really going to ham the facilities everything they've shown how serious they are and then you get has which are in my opinion a waste of a grid spot if andretti aren't going to be allowed on there because jean has doesn't want to invest in it they've got a underwhelming livery and underwhelming driver driver line up and there's just nothing about them they have a huge opportunity as this American team when America is like hugely in Formula One at the moment and they are just not even remotely

they're not even likeable underdog either in my opinion I don't know what it is about them they're just they're just soulless basically I'm like yeah I'm not going to do much slander and then ends it saying that they're soulless but it's true like yeah they're literally like here's a black car with Hass written on in white for the six year in a row and we're going to yeah there's just it's just not anything really interesting about them and it's a shame when Formula One are rejecting teams you know you did that joke on Twitter of like Andretti aren't allowed in because they're not going to give anything to Formula One and then Hass are a bit like oh this is awkward and it's exactly right like what are Hass

giving us that Andretti wouldn't. And this is where there's been conversation and discussion around like teams that are struggling to survive in Formula One, whether there needs to be, if, you know, if there's more and more interest from other parties to join Formula One, a relegation system of somewhat or something where, you know, if they don't achieve much, then bin them off after a few years. Now, this isn't personally just attacking Hats. It's whatever team that's come and gone over the years, like whether that's a system that needs to be put in place, who knows. But with Formula One continuously growing... I don't understand why it's a problem. Or do that and allow for two more cars to be on the grid.

But apparently Formula One thinks that F1 would gain more, sorry, Andretti would gain more than F1. They can't even claim that it's like, they can't even claim that, oh, you know, we've got to facilitate so much because they let Brad Pitt drive a Formula. a two car and have its own pit garage at a few of the races. And then they're like, Andretti, no, no, you're not allowed in.

It's just pathetic, really, isn't it? I think the cork in the bottle here, Tommy, is Monaco. They couldn't fit it in the Monaco pit lane. Well, Haskin sit that one out then. Right, next question. We've had like 24, 26 teams at Monaco and, if anything, the pit lane is bigger than it was. Hey, babes, it was a joke. Don't worry.

No, I know. You don't have to fight. You know, don't. Just before the comments come in. Put your sword away before, you know, that monococlanda was a joke. Don't worry, I'd never come after you about that beautiful place. Next question comes here from Dom EFC. Why the Haas never capitalise on being the only US team and going with a US-style livery?

I don't know, really, to be honest with you. Maybe it's because they don't have a lot to shout about by being at the back, and maybe that in turn they just decide to not go down that route because it's not going to benefit them in any way. And if anything, make them potentially more mean. and silly if they're trying to be like, oh, yeah, Starz and Stripes and they're at the back. Stick an eagle on the nose cone. Yeah.

Higher Logan Sergeant, boom. Just go for it. You're absolutely sorted. But yeah, it's, I guess it's linked with just the fact they're so hindered by not being able to spend a huge amount of money every year in order to develop this team. They are just trying to survive and praying for a miracle. But that's been going on for quite some time now. Like they did used to score points and they did, when they first joined,

they were really impressive. And apart from the fact they couldn't put a will nut on properly around my Australia. But like, you know, you think back to those days, they were quick. And now they are just hanging on

for dear life. And is that what Formula One should be like? Once you get a pass into Formula One, should you always have that pass until you run out of money? I don't know, it just seems slightly backwards when there are other, potentially more likable,

better teams waiting in the wings. Yeah, exactly. that what are they giving to the the sport really not not a lot and like you say they're they're gonna probably you know that they're going backwards they're not doing well and even yeah like you say the livery's underwhelming a driver lineup i'd argue is but underwhelming as well that they're not really like giving a lot and they could do so much more as this u.s team and you know i was only jay i was only joking about the whole like paint an eagle on it and make it blue with starstrily. But something, just do something.

Make it likable, yeah. They could be this likable team. Like we've seen teams in the past like your Menardis or whatever. Or they're trying to do something fun and they're like this like they could even just be like a likeable underdog team. But they just don't really. And this is this is why. Like I do feel bad for slandering them. And I want to say like this is no disrespect to like all the people.

working there because clearly the problem is at the top and it's not being funded enough to give it a proper go. So like they're already, they're never going to be able to compete with the investment and the lack of effort that is being put into them. So they're already, like, on the back foot. So, and it just makes them like a bit of a laughing stock, really. And I think it's not just to do with the car development and trying to do well in races. It goes down to just the general branding, messaging and how they come across as a team. Because for me, you look at them from the outside looking in and they just feel like a business. They just feel like quite a bland kind of I mean, yeah, having the thing on the livery like has tools or whatever. It's like, where's the fun?

Yeah, where is that kind of marketability in the sense of people wanting to invest their emotions into your team and to buy merch and that sort of stuff. There is just nothing to draw you in. And you think back many years to, let's say, one that always comes to mind is Lotus and how they did social media and how they were the first ones to just take the Mickey and just have a lot of fun with it. And the amount of fans that that garnered, they weren't anything special, I don't think, at that time in terms of performances.

But they brought so many fans in because they opened their doors in a sense to fans' hearts. And it was, yeah, I just feel like that they used. used to be a bit fun, Hass, on social media. And then they lost that, I think, after the whole Schumacher-Mazepin partnership. And they kind of gave up after that, I think, just purely because of how bad they were. So since then, they just feel they have lost a lot. Yeah, at least if they had, like I say, this fun side to them, then they might be this kind of plucky underdog that, yeah, don't have much budget,

but you're like, oh, well, the car's cool and they're really funny on social media. And they're trying to be silly with, you know, certain marketing things or whatever, but I couldn't name any, like the only things that have happened to Hass have all been spectacularly bad publicity in terms of sponsors or the people that they've got in on the team and things like that. That's all they had going for it and Gunther Steiner because he swore in DTS and he's not even there anymore. So, yeah, Gunther was probably the last straw in terms of personality and people actually wanting to support Gunter. That was a big thing, wasn't it?

It was the amount of people from Drive to Survive that just loved Gunter and what it has to do well. Anyway, let's move on to another question. This one comes in from Sam Dougie Douglas. If you were Hass, would you not just give up and sell to Andretti? I think I can see this being probably the way out. I don't know how many years down the line. Gene Hass decides to continuously burn money here.

but I think eventually they will just go, there's no point anymore. But the fact that they've sacked Gunter to get another team principal in gives me the impression that they're at least going to give this until the new regulations, if not maybe a year into that, to roll the dice again to see if they can come up with something that's decent. And if not, if at the end of 2026, they're still not great, that's when they've been it off and potentially sell.

That's, in my head, the journey for Hass from here. Yeah. I can never see them being like this powerhouse thing, but at least if they were, like you say, like fun or something, it might be or had something about them. But Andretti is obviously, this is going to be a question that is going to get brought up a lot of like, come on,

Hasse, just let someone else have a go because they feel like they are just sort of hanging about in a, and it's, they're not welcoming new teams in Formula One, clearly even a team that I think Andretti were very serious about it. I don't know why they thought they weren't serious and wouldn't accept them. But the Formula One teams have gone on about how much money they would be and how they've been offered to sell their slots on the grid for like billions and billions.

And you think like, why not do it? Like, and then especially like if Hasse really want to, promote their power tools or whatever, just sell the team, use that money and stick a big house Lego on the Andretti or something. Like what are they getting out of Formula One at the moment? I don't know. I know they wouldn't, but they could sponsor another car.

Like, there's nothing to say they couldn't. That would be quite the downfall, wouldn't it? We've left F1, but our sticker still remains. Okay, next question. Charlandos, why did Charles start a live, literally the second the premiere was starting, and finished the live two minutes later? I did wonder that. I was like, wait, if Charles LeClerc's somehow linked to this Hasse launch with the fact that they have Ferrari engines and stuff? Loaded up the Instagram live, no, he's carting. I think it was just a terrible coincidence personally. Yeah, definitely. But also, it was to the second almost as the car launch started. It was like, oh, Charles live.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Hasse were combating Blooming Lewis Hamilton joining Ferrari and then they had the other Ferrari driver going live on Instagram.

Oh, my goodness me. Poor Hasse, they really were fighting against the tide with this one. But I think it was just a coincidence. It was just a coincidence. But, yeah, Hasse,

yeah, they had it. They were up against it to try and create any kind of huge chatter and promo. But, like I said, you know, they didn't even,

they've got a new team principle which we'll talk about in a bit they didn't even present him it's just literally just a render of a car nothing from the drivers nothing from from anyone else which we always obviously joke about oh it's a bit boring when they go on and on for a car launch but not even afterwards like we've not even seen pictures of like I don't know the new overalls or anything like that from what I've seen at least anyway so it is literally just here's a car goodbye. So yeah, I guess maybe they thought, well, we're never going to compete.

Let's just quietly launch it. If that is their mentality, why are they here? What's the point? Make an effort. Give us some driver interviews. Get K-Mag saying, suck my balls. Whatever it might be, you know what I mean? Just let's just, you know.

They didn't even make a thing of that either. Like that could have been something that they could have made such a song and dance about it and they kind of did a little bit with the odd tweet but you know you've got magnuson and holcomburg that had this big spat and i don't know you never you never see anything on like youtube of the two has drivers having a laugh or something like nothing i mean i i did see something actually which i'm going to quickly search while you're searching for that like the i mean this sums it up that as two four long fans like when we were doing our car launch on

Twitch, you said, oh, no, there is a video. And I was like, well, I didn't even know they had a YouTube channel. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like, there's just no... They didn't really post about it, did they? The fact that they're going to be live and sharing the video, they just kind of went, boom, there you go. I mean, look, they did a fans Q&A with Kevin and Nico on their YouTube channel two months ago, seven and a half thousand views. How, as two Formula One drivers... Yeah. I've never, never seen that or like, you know, wouldn't even know that. that was on there. Yeah.

And it's, yeah, I think they're just really into change how they, you know, maybe we can, you know, get a P1 logo on us

and then we can give our advice. I mean, a purple livery, that would, that would have got us talking, wouldn't it? It'd slow us down because obviously

we don't need the purple accents, Tommy, because of course, let them down, even more. They will go from a whopping

10th in the constructors to 10th in the constructors. To be fair, if they're going to get 10th, I mean, we'll get onto this very quickly in a second

about how slow they're already predicting they're going to be. If they're going to be slow, they may as well look good doing it, you know what I mean? Right, come on. Let's just make the whole car gold.

You know what I mean? Just something to really give it some. And this is the final question. Mega versus Primus. Has Ayo been too honest with saying they will be last in Bahrain? So to give you context, the new team principle has essentially, no, not essentially,

said that they will be towards the back, if not last in Bahrain. How? What a first statement? to like say at a car launch. You can't, like, that is why. Some people are like, oh, Matt, that tweets a bit harsh, isn't it? Because obviously I tweeted saying, ladies and gentlemen,

may I present to you 10th in the constructors. But there is no way. Themselves are saying it. Yeah. There is no way that a team is going to get any higher than 10th in the constructors. In my mind, if the team principle is already writing off their chances before the season's begun. And we know what Hasse's development path is anyway.

Usually they're okay at the start of the year because they've, invested in a lot of development for that moment, and then they do maybe one more upgrade in the whole of the year, and then they're like, oh, maybe they'll be good then. If they're going to be rubbish out the blocks, that's not looking good. No, exactly. What a thing to, and again, you know, he's only being honest and a realist, but it's not the greatest statement to come out with

when you're a new team principal, you know, you're meant to be building this team up and going, I know things are looking bad and we're probably, we're going to struggle, but we can get there eventually. Like, where's the ambition? Yeah, anything to just rampant. And even if it is just unrealistic, like a little bit of ambition, you've got to think like the people there that, you know,

how is that motivating to hear stuff like that when you've just been working your butt off on a building a Formula One car and the team principals going, well, yeah, we're going to finish last, aren't we? Let's be honest. They haven't even had testing yet. They haven't even rolled the car out, which for me basically makes me think that they haven't even changed the car from last year or something. It genuinely feels like that because, yeah, I appreciate the honesty, but on the flip side, as you say, think of the hundreds of people working at this HAST team, slaving away trying to make this car better and make this team better. And then the team principles just come in and gone, no, mate, no chance.

It just needs to wrap it and go, look, it's going to be quite a difficult start to the year we envisage, but, you know, we're working really hard, whatever it might be, just to kind of show. sugarcoat it a little bit. You don't need to be so cut through. We don't need, oh my goodness me. Maybe at the end of testing, you go, yeah, it's not looking great. Not before they've even rolled the blooming car out. That's crazy. So Matt and Tommy for Team Principal of P1 Racing very soon.

Right, that is it, Tom Bellingham and everybody listening and watching. Thank you, as always. Thank you for the support yesterday as well on our Lewis Hamilton content, whether it's over on P1 or our brand new YouTube channel, will knowledge, please go and subscribe to that if you haven't already. We've also got a video on there. Why has Lewis Hamilton gone to Ferrari for 2025? What are your final thoughts, Thomas? My final thoughts are yes, do go subscribe to that new channel because we've got lots of more exciting ideas and like we were going to tell you, and we did put some graphics out, but we

changed our video anyway because of the Lewis Hamilton news that don't worry P1 is going to be the same. we said it on our Twitch stream and stuff. But in case you didn't know, don't worry about the level of content coming out on P1. It's exactly the same. And spruced up even better as well. So we're not doing a house. We're putting some effort in one last house dig before.

That's because we believe we can finish better than 10th. That's the difference here, isn't it? P10 with Matt and Tommy. Yeah, with P1, we have to work hard, mate. All right, thank you, everybody. See you soon. Lots of love. Bye.

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