New Haas will look ‘marginally different’ in Barcelona

Haas technical director Simone Resta says the VF-22 will look “marginally different” at the first test in Barcelona compared to the images launched on Friday.

The first 2022 car to be revealed came in the form of digital images published by Haas, with little detail visible as the team unveiled the design and livery. While not keen to show too much of what the VF-22 will actually look like, Resta says the car that hits the track won’t be a massive departure from the images that were made public.

https://twitter.com/HaasF1Team/status/1489554296995733505?s=20&t=oQNWzsCul7Ci-QxeUM63wg

“I must confess, I don’t even know when the others will reveal their cars!” Resta said. “On our side … there will be a bit of improvement here and there, so the car will look marginally different.

“There has been a very positive performance improvement section after section, so we hope that trend will continue for some time, and we hope then that we will be able to progress the car in season.

“Of course, in two weeks’ time it will be a nice time to see all the cars together on day one in Barcelona on the track when everyone will run. I’m pretty sure there will be different ideas to look at... for thinking about how to evolve the car in a different direction.”

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Resta also insists it is a version of the new Haas that has been released rather than just the 2022 livery on F1’s previously-released example of the new regulations, although he does expect all of the cars to look largely similar.

“I think the model in many areas is quite different to the Formula 1 car. Clearly as we mentioned many times during the season, the amount of freedom that the new technical regulations had left is reduced compared to the past, so, looking at all the cars painted in the same way, you will probably see fewer differences than in the past.

“Nevertheless, there is still a lot of potential to change shapes -- more in some areas than other areas -- but the way the regulations are, it is fair to say, there is a lot of potential in the details. Sometimes the devil is in the detail and there is a lot of potential to improve things even if they don’t look dramatically different from one to another.”

Team principal Guenther Steiner added that the car that finishes testing is likely to be similar to the one that is used at the first race, with no major upgrade planned before Bahrain.

“How different it looks in Barcelona, you will see in two weeks,” Steiner said. “It will be a little bit different, obviously. We are not saying now it will be exactly the same, because this is a stage of development. We don’t want to define it, but it is going in that direction. Between the test and the race, we will not have a lot of changes planned for the moment.”