Adam Cooper F1

The Haas VF-16 was officially unveiled online today, after a brief on-track outing in a filming session at Barcelona on Saturday.

As expected the car has a predominantly grey and red livery, while its type number is derived from the VF-1, the first machine made by Haas in 1988, with V being an industry standard for a vertical mill.

“Just as Haas Automation’s products continually evolve, becoming better and more efficient, our methodology behind the VF-16 was to make it the best evolution of a good F1 car,” said team boss Guenther Steiner. “We’re a new team, so we looked at what the successful teams were doing to give us a baseline of the direction we needed to go with our design.

“We have very experienced designers who worked hard to develop all the little things from an aerodynamic perspective that, collectively, add up to a lot. And our technical partner, Ferrari, provided our power unit, and that really defined the rear end of the car and how big it needed to be.

“Our goal with this car is to score points First, we need to go out there and show that we can do the job, that we can finish races, that we are respected by the fans and other teams in the paddock. Then, we want to score points. That is the ultimate goal.”

McLaren has released the first pictures of the MP4-31, ahead what will surely be a critical period of testing for the team and engine partner Honda.

“The guys have shown intense dedication throughout the winter period, and the result is that they’ve successfully kept our aggressive build and development programmes on schedule,” said Eric Boullier. “As such, all our team members are a credit to McLaren-Honda, and consequently we’re incredibly grateful to everyone involved in the development of the MP4-31.

“But we’re never satisfied, which is why we’ve continued to strengthen our engineering team in recent weeks and months, and we’re confident that the changes we’ve made will improve and accelerate our car-development progress in the future.

“So the two Barcelona tests will merely herald the continuation of the huge collaborative task that all departments have been engaged in during the off-season. We’ll be aiming to spend the four days of the first test carefully and methodically, extracting the maximum from the time available, and concentrating our efforts on proving out our central systems, operational procedures and electronics checks.

“We’ll need to verify our work in the garage before we can expect any miracles on track – essentially, to ensure we walk before we can run.”

Williams became the first team to show its 2016 car when it revealed images of the FW38 via Twitter today.

The Grove team has tried to address the weaknesses of last year’s package, and specifically slow speed performance.

“The FW37 was a pretty effective car and so we concentrated on understanding the areas where we could improve it without losing the attributes which made it effective,” said chief technical officer Pat Symonds. “It is no secret that the low speed performance of the FW37 didn’t match its high speed performance, so a lot of time was spent looking into why this was and subsequently making changes, which we hope will improve the situation. On top of this we looked at the normal physical obstacles to development that one always meets during the life of a car and tried to push those barriers back.

Regarding when the design process started he added: “This is always slightly difficult to answer precisely as one is always discussing the path of improved performance with the senior engineers. However in mid-January 2015, before the FW37 had even run, we held a meeting to try and work our way through a concept ‘shopping list’ and to narrow down the areas in which we hoped the FW38 would out perform its pre-nascent forerunner.

“As we started running the FW37 we could see more clearly the design directions we wanted to take with the next car and at the same time started laying out the basic architecture such that critical path items would hit their design release targets. The monocoque and gearbox, for example, fall into this category as both need considerable time, not just in design but also in structural analysis.”

Red Bull Racing has submitted a design study for a canopy alternative to the Halo F1 cockpit protection option currently preferred by the FIA.

Engineers from five F1 teams – including experts on stress analysis – are meeting with FIA safety expert Andy Mellor in London today to talk about how to integrate the Halo, and it’s understood that the RBR idea will also feature in the discussions if there’s time.

The RBR idea features a combination of a “glass” material and carbon, as did a recent idea that emerged from Mercedes.

The key for the FIA is that the current Halo design has already gone through a lot of testing and there may not be time to complete that process.

“Obviously head protection is crucial,” said Christian Horner when asked by this writer. “Red Bull is making another submission for a canopy that we believe will be a safer option. It’s more of a canopy than a Halo. But it needs to be tested, which hopefully can be done very quickly.

“We have a committed a design study on evolving the FIA’s theme, and we feel there’s a viable solution.”

Asked if it could be readied for 2017, Horner added: “Why not?”

After months of speculation Manor has finally confirmed that Indonesian Rio Haryanto will race for the team this season.

The GP2 race winner will thus join Pascal Wehrlein in a line-up that features two rookies. The news also puts an end to the hopes of both Alex Rossi and Will Stevens, who had also been in the frame for a drive.

“We are delighted to announce Rio as our second race driver for 2016,” said team boss Stephen Fitzpatrick. “Rio’s been racing since he first got into a kart at six years old. He’s tenacious on and off the track and made a big impression on last year’s GP2 battle. Rio’s huge following in Indonesia is great for the team and for F1. They are keen to see him on the grid and we’re confident that we’ll see him enjoying some exciting battles in the year ahead.”

Haryanto has tested for the team on three occasion, starting as long ago as 2010, when it was still known as Virgin.

“Manor Racing is a team with an exciting vision and ambitious plans,” said Haryanto. “They have produced a great package and I can’t wait to get in the car. Melbourne will be a huge moment for me, my country, supporters and fans and I want to thank everyone who’s been with me since I started in single seaters; 2016 is my chance to reward that faith and represent Asia in F1.”