It seems Haas has the most radical change in livery heading into the 2020 season, even more so than the Williams FW43 but its not as good looking. After the sour breakup with 2019’s title sponsor Rich Energy, Haas F1 Team has gone back to its livery theme from 2018. The American F1 team’s 2020 contender, the VF-20 is draped in black and white with red accents. Technically, Haas was the very first to unveil its 2020 contender with an online reveal, but I decided to wait for the physical debut before talking about it.
Haas had a strong result in 2018, despite their difficulties over the course of the season with the constant crashing of Romain Grosjean. In 2019, things were really bad both on and off track. The VF-19 struggled in race trim all season long and the team finished 9th in the constructor’s championship with just 28 points in total.
Team Prinicipal Guenther Steiner commented at the car’s livery unveil: “With the regulations remaining stable into this season, it’s allowed us to improve our understanding of the car and to scrutinize ourselves more in order to find solutions and applications to channel into the design of the VF-20. Last year was definitely a set-back, one I would never have asked for, but you learn from such situations – we all have.”
The team has also retained its driver lineup of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean for the third year in-a-row. Hopefully, the VF-20 will allow these talented drivers to fight for points in the hotly contested middle order. Haas remains a Ferrari customer team, using the 065 power unit for the 2020 season which should offer them the grunt they need.
By the end of the first day of pre-season testing, Magnussen managed to put in 104 laps. However, his best lap was 1.4 seconds off the pace from the fastest lap of the day set by Lewis Hamilton in the W11. Of course, the real result of the team’s progress can be gauged at the first Grand Prix, less than a month away now.
You can explore the Haas VF-20 from more angles in the gallery below:
The Auto Loons 