'We can't count on others for our own success' - Haas

Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu has asserted that teams lower down the Formula 1 pecking order have to “engineer” their own results, not merely pick up the pieces of the established top five.

Whilst drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen capitalised on retirements for Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in Australia to finish ninth and tenth respectively, Komatsu felt Haas could have scored further points.

Magnussen was overcut by Yuki Tsunoda after pitting early in the race to defend against an Alex Albon undercut, and Komatsu believes the team had made a similar error in the season-opener in Bahrain.

Tsunoda would go onto finish in seventh with and Komatsu felt more was on the table for the team.

Cannot count on the reliability of others

"We cannot keep making those mistakes when everything in the midfield is so tight, right?" lamented Komatsu to media including RacingNews365.

"Okay, we are equal on the points, but because [Tsunoda's] got P8, you know, they are sixth, [in the constructors’ standings and we are seventh], that could be the difference at the end of the year for one championship position.

“That’s huge. So, we’ve really got to be perfect in every sense."

Komatsu was then asked how encouraging reliability issues for two top teams were, meaning that there could potentially be more points available to his team in the future.

“Yeah, but you can’t count on those things,” he said.

"You cannot live and hope for something bad to happen to other people. You’ve got to engineer your own success.

"We’ve just got to keep looking at ourselves, improving our car, improving operations, tighten up the strategy just to put yourself in that position.”