Haas unveils VF-26 ahead of 2026 season

Haas has unveiled its 2026 car and livery as it prepares for this year’s new regulations alongside new title partner Toyota.

The team has been rebranded as TGR Haas F1 Team this year after Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR) increased its involvement to be title partner, taking over from Moneygram. That has led to a tweak in the color scheme from last year, with the 2026 design mainly white and featuring prominent TGR branding.

The VF-26 follows the two Red Bull-owned teams in showing off initial solutions to the 2026 rules, with the narrower front wing featuring large winglets on the outside of the endplates, and bargeboards ahead of the sidepods.

“Like all teams, we’ve faced the challenge of competing in 2025 while looking to design and now build these new-regulation entries for the 2026 season”, team owner Gene Haas said. “The pre-season will be crucial to understand what these cars are capable of and how the drivers, engineers and teams in general adapt to them. We at least have continuity in terms of the drivers, with Ollie (Bearman) and Esteban (Ocon), as well as in our design and engineering teams.

“Last season’s competition in the midfield was of an exceptionally high standard, it was tough, and we need to go out again and continue to develop – both on and off-track. Personally, I’m going to be very interested to see how the competition shakes out across the grid and what these new regulations bring in terms of performance.”

Technical director Andrea de Zordo says the new power unit regulations – that deliver a 50:50 split between internal combustion and electrical power – are likely to be the biggest performance differentiator in the early stages this season.

“For sure, the new regulations will change the balance between aero and energy management,” de Zordo said. “Initially with the PU, as it’s all so new, there is - not necessarily more to gain, but a lot more to lose if you don’t do well. To understand how it works and how to maximize that will probably be the most important part.

“After a certain time, when drivers, teams and also power unit suppliers learn more about this new way of racing, then gradually the performance on the energy side will converge between competitors. The main differentiator will then go back to being on the aero side, but I think initially, managing that energy side will be critical this year.”

Despite warnings from the Red Bull launch that reliability could play a major role in the opening races, de Zordo says Haas is aiming to be competitive immediately, but admits analyzing the competition will be a a big part of pre-season.

“It’s definitely not just to finish a race because we’re not here to participate, we’re here to challenge,” he said. “We’ve put so much work in because we want to produce the best possible car and to be as competitive as possible, and we’ll be looking to develop for round one already. There are too many unknowns to guess where anyone will be, it’s very unpredictable, but we’re going to start to discover a lot over the next month.

“It’s difficult to predict now before the first race, and we’re always interested to see if someone has come up with something new. This year, that’s very relevant because literally everything is new, including the power unit. There’s going to be a lot of work initially on both the aerodynamics and power unit, and in both I expect there to be a fast evolution – what that will be – I can’t say.”