JANUARY 11, 2024

Simone Resta leaves Haas

In a surprise move, the highly rated Simone Resta has decided to leave his position as Technical Director of Haas, just one monthe before the launch of this year’s VF-24. Resta had been leading the technical department the American team put together in Maranello, with 80 other engineers that moved from Ferrari, and a few dozen others that had previously been with other teams, at the start of 2021 but has now opted to leave at the end of what was a very disappointing season for Haas.

Resta, however, has remained a Ferrari employee – like it’s the case of almost all of those who transitioned from the Scuderia to Haas three years ago – and could easly return to the main team, something that we’ll find out in the next couple of weeks. However, with Loic Serra joining the Italian team in less than one year and Pierre Wache expected to move from Red Bull to be Ferrari’s new Technical Director at the start of 2026, it’s difficult to see where Resta could fit in, as he’s unlikely to accept a smaller role than the one he has just left.

According to Italian sources, there were two main reasons behind Resta’s decision to abandon ship, in both cases connected with decisions forced upon him and his group by the team’s management. First of all, the need to base his own car’s concept on what Ferrari was doing led to the VF-23 being uncompetitive for most of the season, as the work done by the Scuderia in preparation of the last season, under the guidance of Mattia Binotto and David Sanchez, took Ferrari down the wrong path – and Resta seemed to be aware of that but lacked the tools to gon in a completely different direction. On top of that, it had been made clear to the Italian engineer that the concept of the 2026 car would also have to follow Ferrari’s lead – to increase the number of parts that could be purschased from the Scuderia, and with lack of autonomy, Resta has decided to call it quits.

There was also the decision to rush out a completely new version of the VF-23 close to the end of the season, in a desperate bid to move the American team out of last place in the championship, using up valuable resources that Resta, allegedly, prefered to put on the design and development of this year’s car. Unsurprisingly, the heavily redesigned car failed to improve the team’s situation, scoring no points and being so difficult to drive for Nico Hulkenberg the German decided to race with the original version in the final two rounds of the championship.

Now Haas will have to find a new technical leader, not so much to develop the new VF-24 and its 2025 successor, as the baseline for development for the next 18 months has already been defined and can be carried over the the remaining personnel, but to lead the design and development of the all-important 2026 car, that will pretty much set the performance of the team for the following four seasons.

For Resta, while a return to Ferrari cannot be discarded, it’s more likely he’ll find a new job elsewhere. Previously the Italian successfully worked for Sauber but the future owners of the Swiss team, Audi, have already hired James Key as Technical Director, making it difficult to integrate Resta in its future structure.

Nevertheless, with a very good reputation in the paddock, Resta is unlikely to be out of a job for long, so it will be just a matter of time before we find out his next destination.