Haas became the first team to reveal the livery it would be using throughout the 2023 Formula 1 season on Tuesday with the release of render photos, ahead of the official launch of the actual VF-23 in the coming weeks.
The team has already cycled through various design schemes during their relatively short history in the sport, but how does the overall look of their 2023 challenger stack up in comparison to their previous cars? MotorsportWeek.com takes a look.
8) 2017
The team radically broke from the colour scheme it used in its debut year the season before by opting to dispense with white in favour of a predominantly light grey liveried design.
However, the decision is one that has not been repeated since, and understandably so. The grey failed to make an impression and largely overwhelmed the complimenting darker shade of red used on the Haas in the specification at launch.
To their credit, unlike a lot of their competitors, the designers did make a veiled attempt to blend the livery into the shark fin but even that proved moderately unsuccessful.
7) 2021
Haas had already resigned themselves to enduring a painful final year before the regulations reset and they were unable to salvage a wretched season by at least sporting a good look on the racetrack.
Although the Kannapolis-based outfit insisted the choice of red and blue alongside their traditional white was not a testament to the new investment that had been injected into the team by the Russian fertilizer company, Uralkali, that argument always proved a hard one to digest.
Thankfully for fans, the two VF-21 cars frequently being a long way back from the rest of the pack meant their eyesore of a livery rarely received much television coverage.
6) 2018
White returned to the fore for the American team’s third F1 season with a livery that was largely an evolution from its debut look.
While in some respects the more adventurous take on their now-classic iteration was a positive step in the right direction, the varied combination of colours at the front of the car arguably portrayed a design that appeared disjointed from the rear and far more clustered than it perhaps needed to be.
5) 2016
As ever, the addition of a new entry prompted widespread intrigue as to the livery the latest F1 entity would be adopting for its maiden outing.
In the case of Haas, however, it largely played it safe by electing to unveil a basic but sleek-looking professional design. It provided a reasonable start on the livery front for America’s latest F1 team and it would ultimately pave the way for the appearance that the team has become commonly associated with ever since.
4) 2020
After a season in black and gold, Haas reverted to its traditional colours for 2020.
Although the side profile reflected numerous similarities to similar liveries of the past at first glance, there were some notable alterations to some of the car’s predecessors.
By contrast to the last time they ran the same colour scheme, the design structure across the monocoque and front nose cone was far more elegantly presented than the 2018 design.
The inclusion of the ever-present red became much more subtle and the removal of the grey entirely in favour of a predominantly black and white base proved to be the difference maker in giving it a slight edge over other versions of the same livery.
3) 2022
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparking the departure of Uralkali as the team’s title sponsor ahead of pre-season, Haas was forced to rectify its livery for the 2022 season.
At such short notice, the team elected not to make any widespread changes and instead only opted to purely discard the blue and increase the usage of red with a stripe aligning the bottom of the car’s white base all the way through.
It proved to be a clean-looking design and one that became even more popular when the returning Kevin Magnussen scored fifth place on its debut race weekend outing.
2) 2019
Although the Rich Energy title sponsorship would prove a PR catastrophe for Haas, their break from tradition to sport a new-look black and gold livery provided one of the best looks of 2019.
Despite not quite reaching the iconic status of the Lotus cars driven by the great Ayrton Senna, Haas’s spin on an all-time classic colour combination was still worthy of being ranked extremely high on this list.
1) 2023
Haas has opened up the second year of the new era by heading in a slightly different direction with its 2023 livery.
The frontal view of the car has remained largely the same as last year with a white and red base design sticking to tradition; however, the introduction of a strikingly black rear end has already caught the eye and emerged as a popular evolution of the old Haas liveries.
Furthermore, while the addition of new title sponsors has proven to be an element that can ruin the entire look of a livery in the past, MoneyGram’s logo has been implemented several times across the car in a manner that doesn’t detract from the overall design.
Unlike in previous years, Haas has certainly set the bar high when it comes to liveries for 2023 and the VF-23 has thoroughly ignited the excitement of the F1 launch season.
