From boss to driver: Why Gene Haas drove the VF-23 at Goodwood
Gene Haas took the VF-23 up the Goodwood hill climb on Friday at the 2025 Festival of Speed as part of the F1 75 celebrations, and Haas' 10 year anniversary in the sport.
As part of the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed’s celebrations for the 75th Anniversary of Formula 1, Haas have brought both their 2023 VF-23 and 2024 VF-24 cars to run up the famous hill climb. Over the course of the weekend, both Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman will drive the cars up the hill as well as team principal Ayao Komatsu, but a special guest took control of the VF-23 on Friday – team owner Gene Haas.
But with no prior experience of driving such cars, Gene Haas had to firstly be convinced by team principal Ayao Komatsu to take on the infamous hillclimb, Komatsu said that he could tell Gene was nervous about the opportunity, but was keen for Gene to drive one of his own machines on the 10-year anniversary of his team being in Formula 1.
Komatsu asked Gene if he would want to drive at Goodwood during the Miami Grand Prix weekend, admitting that Gene didn’t know much about the event at the time, but after having read about it he was really excited to be involved.
To prepare for the run, Haas held a shakedown using the Stowe circuit at Silverstone prior to the Austrian Grand Prix. When asked about how the shakedown went, Komatsu said, “It was amazing to see… We did several outings, and, OK, he was a bit nervous to start with. You’d expect that. But every time he went out, you could see his confidence grow; he was getting on the power a bit more, and coming back with even more of a smile on his face, which was great. He was full of smiles.”
After his run up the hill on Friday afternoon, which you can watch on the official Haas YouTube channel here, Gene said “It’s really not what you expect, these cars aren’t designed to go 40mph so I’m actually riding the brakes all the time trying to slow it down. If I take my foot off the brake it just zooms out!” Gene also said it was tricky to keep the car out of anti-stall because the hillclimb is so tight, he had to keep engaging the clutch to keep the car on the move. “It’s a real challenge to try to keep the car going slow enough to make it work”, Gene said.
Komatsu also spoke on the significance of the Haas F1 Team’s presence at the festival this year, which is the teams debut year at the event – and is significant because Haas previously have not had a testing program, and so have been unable to run their older cars at such events. “We couldn’t do it before,” Komatsu said. “This is the first year with a test car programme. We’ve never had that kind of heritage team before, so it’s just evidence that we are growing as a team.