Haas usually keep it low-key with their F1 launches. Aside from a slick reveal event at London’s RAC Club in 2019 to mark their ill-fated deal with then title sponsor Rich Energy, the team tends to send out rendered images before pulling the covers off the old-fashioned way in the pitlane on the first morning of testing.
That’s the strategy they are employing this year, with the team keeping their actual 2021 car under wraps and instead of showing off a new look that ditches the familiar grey of Haas Automation - owner Gene Haas’ tool company - for a predominantly white livery.
There are also stripes of blue and red which in addition to the white denote the Russian flag, in support of their title sponsor Urakali, a fertilizer company that is part-owned by wealthy businessman Dmitry Mazepin, father of Nikita.
The VF-21 will be rolled out in front of the Haas garage in Bahrain at 8.30am local time on Friday, March 12, before running gets underway one-and-a-half hours later.
Haas has said their rookie drivers, who replace the experienced line-up of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, will split the running between them each day of the three-day test.
The American team finished ninth in the constructors’ championship last year, one place above Williams, and are facing a difficult campaign this year has decided to limit development to focus on the 2022 car when regulations change.
It emerged last month they will not fire up the car until they get to Bahrain due to restrictions on the movement of people because of Covid-19, but Steiner said at the time he wasn’t too concerned.
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