Haas’ new era revealed

Haas has taken the covers off the VF-24 that will lead the team into a new era in the 2024 Formula 1 season.

The first Haas F1 car that will not be led by Guenther Steiner has been revealed with a similar colour scheme to its 2023 predecessor.

The biggest change is on the nose section which is now all black having been white previously.

It makes the VF-24 much darker on all corners compared to previous Haas cars.

Following the second livery reveal of the F1 season after McLaren, the actual VF-24 will be seen for the first time at a Silverstone shakedown on February 11.

Although Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen form an unchanged driver line up, 2024 will be the start of a new era for Haas being led by someone other than Steiner for the first time.

After a disappointing 2023 finishing last and battling tyre dramas, Steiner was axed with former director of engineering Ayao Komatsu stepping up.

Speaking at the Haas livery launch Komatsu was frank about the teams chances, even stating his expectations to be towards the back end of the grid, but his hopeful of a turnaround soon.

“Out of the gates in Bahrain, I still think we’re going to be towards the back of the grid, if not last,” he conceded. 

Nico Hulkenberg leads Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen during Q1 at the 2023 São Paulo GP. Image: Simon Galloway / LAT Images.

“Since I’ve become Team Principal, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to managers – both in the UK and Italy – and they’re excited because it’s an opportunity to improve and there are areas of improvement everywhere.

“The reason our launch-spec car is not going to be quick enough in Bahrain is not because of the quality of the people we have here, but it’s because we started late and then we stopped for two months to do the Austin upgrade. 

“It really diverted resources, so we lost time there, but the team is finding good gains in the wind tunnel so that’s positive and in terms of characteristics, it’s going in the right direction.

“The focus is to have a good test programme for Bahrain so that we come away from the test having quality data for the team to analyse and understand which direction to develop the car. 

“This means understanding the strength and weakness of the VF-24 accurately, then putting a coherent plan together to produce updates on the car, which hasn’t happened previously.”

2024 F1 car launch dates

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