Different Formula 1 teams have contacted the Haas F1 Squad to express their interest in purchasing Haas Automation equipment, team owner Gene Haas revealed.
Gene Haas was hoping to use his team’s entry into F1 as a way to market his machine-tool brand. The company currently sells their automation tools to the rival NASCAR teams in the American series.
Speaking with the correspondents, Gene Haas said: “We do it in NASCAR a lot, and a lot of our competing teams use Haas Automation equipment,”
“We’ve had Formula 1 teams ask about how to procure equipment from us, and if we weren’t there, that’s probably something that wouldn’t have happened.
“If we can compete at these high levels that gets us the notoriety we want for Haas Automation.
“On the marketing side of it, we bring customers to the races and that works really well because – especially in Formula 1 – it’s pretty much impossible to even get into the pits unless you know a team, so we’re bringing a lot of our special customers only to these racetracks.
“It makes them feel special, and that translates into their perception of us and how they relate to people in their industry.
“It just kind of builds on itself that this is a top-notch team in association with a top-notch machine-tool builder, and that’s the whole thing – the association of quality, performance and winning machine tools.
“There’s a lot of interest, and it’s good to keep people engaged – not just on the machine tool side, but on the racing side as well, and merging those things together.”
Having teams in two different series is proving to be useful, he said, as there is a lot of interest in sharing information about how the other side operates.
“We’re a NASCAR team and here we are doing Formula 1,” he said.
“There’s a lot of similar technologies and I’ve even had a lot of people from the Formula 1 side wanting to know how NASCAR guys do this, so there’s a lot of interest.
“You have two sports that are at the top of their fields – stock car versus open-wheel racing – but they seem to have a lot of interest in how each of these entities have evolved over the years and what can be gleaned from the two series.”
