Compared to the colour scheme the American team ran on its VF-23 2023 car, the new livery is not a substantial change, with the main area of alteration being the upper nose section.
This is now predominantly black compared to being white last year, which makes the VF-24 appear dark from all angles compared to its predecessor.
While Haas has only released renders of the VF-24’s livery so far, it will run its new car for the first time at a Silverstone shakedown on 11 February.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the VF-24 running and racing – a sentiment I know I share with our partners and indeed the entire team,” said Gene Haas, the Haas F1 team’s owner and chairman.
“In Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, we also know we’ve got a great pair of drivers behind the wheel.
“Their experience will prove invaluable again as we develop our programme through the year.
“We’ve used the off-season to put the processes in place to be better and ultimately improve our overall performance. Soon we get to see how we’re doing.”
The biggest story of Haas’s off-season concerned the axing of long-time team principal and effective co-founder of the squad, Guenther Steiner.
He was replaced by former Haas director of engineering, Ayao Komatsu, when Steiner did not have his contract renewed by Gene Haas after the 2023 season concluded.
It was a disappointing campaign for Haas, as it slipped back from eighth in 2022 to finish last in 2023 – its season dominated by failing to fix an in-race tyre management problem caused by the aerodynamic layout of the VF-23.
In a Haas team statement, Komatsu said the squad is “realistic about our expectations for the VF-24 to start”, while adding, “it’s still an exciting moment in any F1 season to showcase the [livery]”.
But in a frank admission, he stated that he expects Haas “out of the gates in Bahrain [when the sole test and first race will take place]… I still think we’re going to be towards the back of the grid, if not last”.
Komatsu claims this is because the resources dedicated to the team’s 2023 late-season upgrade package introduced at Austin – which ultimately failed to add any performance to its 2023 car or solve its main issues – had been taken away from the development of the VF-24.
“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,” said Komatsu.
“It really diverted resource, 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 program 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 put a coherent plan together to produce updates on the car, which hasn’t happened previously.”
Haas as has also announced that its former chief designer Andrea De Zordo has been promoted to technical director, replacing Simone Resta in that role after he left the team where he had been on secondment from Ferrari at the end of last year.
Haas is now recruiting for De Zordo’s replacement as chief designer but is expected to promote from within its F1 organisation.
