Haas admits budget cap gap is hurting 2026 fight

Haas’s early 2026 promise has faded because it is the only Formula 1 team still operating below the budget cap, a handicap team principal Ayao Komatsu says is now costing it ground in the midfield development race.

Speaking at Spa-Francorchamps on Belgian Grand Prix media day, Komatsu said Haas is "absolutely" the only team on the grid not spending to the limit and admitted the shortfall is more than a simple technical slowdown. With the 2026 cap set at $215 million, excluding items such as marketing and drivers’ salaries, he said getting Haas to that level is now one of the top priorities on his list.

"I wish we could. We’re not," Komatsu said. "It’s one of the top priorities on my job list. To be able to fund this team so that we can operate at the budget cap. Because that’s the baseline, right? We should be achieving that first off."

The financial gap helps explain a sharp reversal in form. After the first two grands prix, Haas sat fourth in the constructors’ standings, helped by Ollie Bearman finishing seventh in Melbourne and fifth in China. Since the April break, though, the team has scored only three points, fewer than every team except Cadillac and Aston Martin, and the VF-26 has slipped from a regular Q3 contender to a car that now struggles to get out of Q1.

Bearman said the problem is rooted in the speed of development under the new rules. Last year, he said, the regulations were mature enough that teams were adding performance in smaller steps, but 2026 has turned into a much more aggressive update race.

"People are bringing massive overhauls to their cars almost on a weekly basis," Bearman said. "First of all, that’s something that we simply couldn’t do." He added that Haas has been "overtaken in terms of development" because it has not brought enough to the VF-26 compared with its direct rivals.

Komatsu agreed with the broader point that Haas is being outdeveloped, but he pushed back on any suggestion that the slump reflects a lack of ability inside the team. He said the staff are "very capable," do "a fantastic job" and are working in a "no-blame culture," with clear communication and strong teamwork.

Instead, he placed the responsibility on the team’s resources and his own need to improve them. "I’m not, so far, being able to give them enough ammunition for our guys to show what they’re capable of," he said. "It’s not fair on our guys to have that constraint. It’s like they’re fighting with both hands tied."

Komatsu said Haas’s early-season performance had been "unexpected" given the scale of the regulation change and the size of the team, but he warned that sustaining that level without matching rivals financially is not realistic. He said the current situation is "not sustainable" long term and tied Haas’s recovery directly to bringing in more revenue and creating a better working environment.

He said that despite the team’s struggles in Miami, Barcelona, Spielberg and Silverstone, the internal response has been constructive rather than defensive, with staff openly confronting where performance has gone missing and how to improve it. The next step, he said, is making Haas capable of operating at the cap "as soon as possible," because "we’ve got the guys to do it" and "we’ve got the drivers to do it" once the team can fight on equal financial terms.