Why Haas F1 won’t use Toyota’s wind tunnel despite technical partnership

Haas will continue to work in Ferrari’s Formula 1 wind tunnel despite signing a high-profile technical partnership with Toyota last year.

Although Toyota's F1 team came and went expensively during the 2000s without securing a single victory, its wind tunnel in Cologne was once considered so cutting edge that other F1 outfits used it in preference to their own. 

However, Haas has decided to stick to the same Ferrari tunnel that it has used since its entry into F1 in 2016.

The decision is a strategic one which involves Haas’s search for a new HQ in which it will be able to rationalise performance work currently split between the US, the UK and Italy. This will also include the integration of a new driver-in-loop simulator Haas will build as part of Toyota’s investment.

To establish an aerodynamics group located in Cologne, or have one commuting there, would add costs and make logistics more rather than less complicated. The Toyota tunnel also has a specific shortcoming which directly affects research into ground effect.

“Never is a strong word,” team boss Ayao Komatsu told Motorsport.com and a select group of media during a pre-season briefing, “but for the foreseeable future, we have no plans to move out of the Maranello wind tunnel.”

Wind tunnel

Photo by: McLaren

Following Toyota’s withdrawal from F1 at the end of 2009, several teams – including McLaren, Williams, Force India (now Aston Martin) and even Ferrari – shifted research into Toyota’s tunnel, although in Ferrari’s case it was a temporary measure while it refitted its own tunnel, which is housed inside a spectacular Renzo Piano-designed structure near the rear entrance to the Maranello factory. Currently only the Cadillac team is working in Cologne.

At the time, Toyota’s tunnel enjoyed a significant advantage over others because it offered Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), a technique in which tiny particles illuminated by a laser sheet are used instead of smoke to give a visual representation of the flow field around a car. PIV is considered more accurate because the tracer particles exert less of an influence over airflow than smoke particles.

Now, though, most teams have upgraded their facilities to include PIV and attention has shifted to the form of the rolling road. In the new ground-effect era, where the cars run closer to the ground, the interaction between the car floor and track surface has become a key performance differentiator.

Last summer Ferrari shut down its F1 wind tunnel to install a new ‘rubberised’ rolling road which, while less durable than the conventional steel belt, more accurately reflects the texture of a track surface. Haas is now enjoying the benefits of Ferrari’s work, whereas Toyota would have to undertake the same research and investment programme to offer the same competitive standard.

It has not escaped the attention of anyone in F1 that the teams leading the way in the 2024 constructors’ championship and seemingly encountering the fewest significant aerodynamic problems through the season – McLaren and Ferrari – both have recently upgraded wind tunnel facilities.

“For me, it’s a win-win situation, because us and Ferrari are of course fighting in the same championship, so whatever specific issue you have on your wind tunnel hardware, which is related to the specifics of the [ground effect] regulations in this generation, Ferrari is doing the research, they are addressing it, so we take the benefit without us doing the research," said Komatsu.

“I don’t see any point in us moving out of the Maranello simulator to go to the Toyota wind tunnel which currently doesn’t have [a ‘rubberised’ floor]. OK, Andretti is using it, but they’re not competing in F1 yet.

“So for the foreseeable future, I don’t see any point in moving out of the Maranello wind tunnel.”

Besides potential performance advantages – even though Haas’s 2025 car will feature fewer elements bought in from Ferrari’s 2025 package, notably the front suspension – maintaining a presence in Maranello offers an element of logistical continuity as Haas looks to do more performance research ‘under one roof’. It’s understood that a number of options for a new UK HQ were presented to team owner Gene Haas at the end of January.

This facility will house the new driver-in-loop simulator coming as part of Toyota’s investment. Currently if Haas wishes to use Ferrari’s simulator, personnel must travel from the UK.

“If you look at the simulator, last year we did definitely not more than 15 days,” said Komatsu. “What other teams only do 15 days of simulator running?

“During the race weekend, we don’t do any simulator running at all. Again, I think everybody else does.

“So all of those capabilities, we haven’t got. And if we have got the simulator in Maranello, that is the only simulator that we have access to. We simply cannot do it.

“We have to send people from here because the Maranello office is largely designed for not directly operational performance people. So that is why having the simulator here in terms of efficiency would be night and day.”