F1 launch season gets underway unexpectedly early with digital images of Haas' VF-20; "The VF-20 has to deliver where our previous car didn't," say team after a torrid 2019
Thursday 6 February 2020 19:19, UK
Haas have become the first team to release images of a 2020 Formula 1 car, with their new VF-20.
In a preview to the sport's full 'launch week' from Monday, Haas revealed digital pictures of their latest challenger on social media.
Haas return to the grey, white and red colour scheme of their early seasons in a restyled form after a black and gold look in 2019, a season in which they slumped to a disappointing ninth in the Constructors' Championship.
Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen stay on as their drivers for another season.
"I'm pleased to see the car return to the more familiar Haas Automation colours, it's certainly a livery that people identify with," said team founder Gene Haas.
"Frankly, I'm hoping the VF-20 will return us to the kind of form we ran in 2018 when we finished fifth in the constructors' championship. 2019 was a tough season to endure. We've been through a real education process, one that comes to all Formula 1 teams at some stage.
"I'm trusting we've learned from those lessons and have applied that knowledge into making the VF-20 a more competitive entry. It's important to me that we're back in the mix and consistently scoring points, we certainly have the capability and we've proved as an organisation we can do it."
Haas' torrid 2019 came as a surprise given 2018, their third season in F1, had delivered a strong fifth place in the Constructors' Championship.
Last year's VF-19 often proved fast over a single lap in qualifying, but the longer race distance routinely proved a different story with Grosjean and Magnussen regularly sliding down the field amid tyre-wear woe.
But team boss Guenther Steiner is confident lessons have been learned and they understand what went wrong.
"Undoubtedly the VF-20 has to deliver where our previous car didn't," said Steiner.
"With the regulations remaining stable into this season, it's allowed us to improve our understanding of the car and to scrutinise 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. Everybody at the team was forced to look at themselves and understand what they can do better.
"I'm looking forward to seeing the VF-20 make its track debut. As always in testing, you want many things, but lots of mileage, reliability and speed would be welcomed as we ready ourselves for the first race in Australia."
Analysing the first images of the new car, Sky F1's Karun Chandhok tweeted: "That's a good amount of rake in there! Wonder if Haas have got on top of their mysterious 2019 inconsistency and found a good baseline for the new season."
