Haas changes livery for Monaco Grand Prix

2017 Monaco Grand Prix

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Haas has revealed a revised car livery in time for this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.

The team has replaced much of the red portions of its livery with grey. Team principal Guenther Steiner said the change will be “for the whole year now.”

“With the change in the size of the numbers and its positioning, we looked into making the entire car a little more visible.”

According to the team: “Sleek tones of gray have replaced the red portions of the car, save for the angular red accent mark at the rear which has been a trademark of Haas F1 Team since its debut last season. It’s a styling upgrade for a locale where upgraded style is a way of life.”

2017 Monaco Grand Prix

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    Haas says it won’t revert to the livery it used up until the Spanish Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    74 comments on “Haas changes livery for Monaco Grand Prix”

    1. The car was pretty visible with the bright red bits, thank you.

      1. I thought it looked like an utter mess, to be honest. It was just a total blur of stuff!

        I think this is much cleaner. Still horrifically dull, but certainly less offensive on the eyes.

        On the topic of new liveries, did anyone else notice that the FI was much more pink at Barcelona? Looks much better, really like it!

        1. Correct. Steiner’s word are a long way of saying “We wanted to make it a bit less ugly”. And they succeeded, even if at the cost of making it look dull. So fair game to them, I guess (and also shame to them for the original design).

      2. I guess it still looked to much like the 2016 Ferrari.

        1. @montalvo How does this (https://cdn-3.motorsport.com/images/mgl/0oKQJqx0/s8/f1-haas-f1-team-vf-17-launch-2017-spyshot-haas-vf-17.jpg) even remotely look like this (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Ferrari_SF16-H_-_Sebastian_Vettel_-_2016_Monaco_F1_GP.jpg)?

          Only the first 30cm of the nose are look alike, but even those are totally different hues of red. Even the rear wing, which otherwise has the most red in it is completely different. Haas is almost completely red with white letters, while Ferrari is 60/40 red and white with red letters.

          1. It was a joke.

          2. @addvariety
            Every time i see last years cars i remember how ugly they where.

      3. If boring was the objective, they got it spot on !

    2. Never heard “Sleek grey” before I have heard “monotonous and boring” though. I liked the red.

      1. Elephant

    3. Needs more ‘MURICA…. Red, White, and Blue!!

      1. Yes, but then the Chinese could than interpret it as Taiwanese. You gotta be careful these days, no country has a grey or pink flag, it’s a safe shot.

        1. And your point is? Who cares if they interpret it as Taiwanese? I’m sure many more people would relate it to the USA than Taiwan. There are a bunch of flags with red white and blue. I would assume the Union Jack and the US Flag are the two most people think of.

        2. Russia and France come to mind. As well as several other European countries.

          1. For me it will always be the Dutch colours, though Luxembourg has it too, just a lighter shade of blue :)

            1. The only flag that comes to mind with red, white and blue is North Korea.

    4. Tommy Scragend
      19th May 2017, 16:21

      “we looked into making the entire car a little more visible”

      By making it almost entirely grey. Genius. I bet the manufacturers of hi-vis clothing are kicking themselves for getting that one wrong.

      1. it’s like they went the opposite way completely. Instead of a bright colour, they just painted it in tarmac colour.

    5. I don’t see the numbers and the livery is … boring

      1. I think they should get into trouble for having the name with rather small contrast in light gray again dark gray

    6. It’s a shame. Haas seem like a fun team with some characters, but the car is easily the most boring on the grid. I agree with the sentiment that less is more, but the minimal styling doesn’t work because the HAAS logo is anything but elegant… it basically looks like something emblazoned on toxic cleaning products found at the pound store.

      1. @john-h

        looks like something emblazoned on toxic cleaning products found at the pound store.

        I hadn’t seen it like that until now, but you definitely have a point there

        1. Robert McKay
          19th May 2017, 18:13

          I’M BARRY SCOTT AND THIS HAAS CLEANS EVERYTHING!!!

          1. Fukobayashi (@)
            20th May 2017, 9:28

            Classic! Hahaha

    7. This is to hide the brake dust getting on the livery

      1. Oooo. I see what you did there. +1

    8. I like it actually, and I’m a designer. It’s less busy, the logo is pretty mental with the heavy black stroke but it works on race car.

      1. My filing cabinet is grey.

      2. This is why designers should stay away form designing.

    9. “OOOohhhh saaayyy caaan youuuu seeee…..”

      Not really – you blend in with the track.

      1. That’s what I think too, it has too much colour that is similar to the track and the unwashed Armco barriers.
        I had heard some mirrors on some of the cars vibrate at speed. I don’t know if that is a problem this year or not, but if it is then a driver looking in his mirrors will see a grey blur when there’s no one behind them, a grey blur when the Haas car is behind them, and a grey blur when the driver of a Haas car is trying to overtake them.
        I guess if both cars crash out then they’ll have to think about changing the colour scheme.

      2. Camouflaged and stealthy so they can sneak up on opponents.

    10. The new livery pretty much shows that Haas is a CNC Manufacturer. Now I can relate their products with the car livery!

      1. Yes, an exciting drill bit colour.

    11. A bit bland and it will be tough to identify the drivers name and number in grey on track. Driver number and name in red would help.

      1. Where is the number??? Could not spot it……

        1. Michael Brown (@)
          19th May 2017, 22:51

          There’s a driver number?

    12. Not a fan at all. It looks very dull indeed

      1. I think they should’ve at least kept the red rear wing. That was very striking

    13. Scuderia-Racing-Or-Ping-Pong (@)
      19th May 2017, 16:53

      Looks worse than the older one.

    14. Duncan Snowden
      19th May 2017, 17:02

      So… they’re… making “the entire car a little more visible” by painting it the same colour as the track?

      Objectively, I agree with Kie above: it’s a cleaner, tidier, design. The nose always looked a bit awkward to me on the original 2017 livery. But “dull” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Even the Amercian flag on the side of the cockpit is monochrome. This is motor racing. It’s supposed to be fun. Now that Ron has left, Haas are officially the new McLaren (and even they had that awesome reflective chrome for a while). I expect Steiner will start talking about “suboptimal iterations of the qualification process” and suchlike any day now.

    15. The HAAS logo needs an update. It literally looks like something a kid drew. Proportions are wrong. Easy fix to update without losing recognition.

      1. I think it doesn’t help that there’s a heavy outline around it. This doesn’t appear on most variants of the logo so I’m struggling to understand why it does here

    16. Nice, I might stop confusing them with McLaren now.

      1. @george How are they even remotely similar? Perhaps going for an eye check is required for yourself.

      2. How did you do that? I’ve confused a Renault with a McLaren at least twice now this season, but I’ve never managed to confuse a Haas with a McLaren.

    17. How much do you think Mr. Haas pays each month out-of-pocket to run his F1 team? The outfit must be bleeding cash. I figured the respectable showing Haas F1 put on last year would get them at least something beyond self-sponsorship.

      I don’t present the question to criticize Mr. Haas. If I were a billionaire I would probably blow half of it to go racing, too. Perhaps a return to a sport where rich guys go racing instead of big manufacturers go racing is positive…

      1. Not sure why you seem to be assuming he’s gleaned no marketing impact from being in F1. Perhaps you don’t see other sponsorship on the car because he’s doing fine and has greatly upped his global contracts for his CNC machinery. I suggest too that he probably has a plan going back to before he started putting this team together that would include budgets etc etc. I doubt we need worry about Haas. I doubt he is out of pocket anything that he won’t see back from his exposure of his brand to the world.

    18. The most boring livery on the 2017 grid is made even more boring.

    19. Rick Lopez (@viscountviktor)
      19th May 2017, 17:31

      More visible by making it grey. Right.

      1. Well, when you consider that the old livery had red letters on a Dark Grey/Black background. The white actually provides a nice contrast. I like this one better.

    20. Stealthy…

    21. I had expected the “American” team to tap into the US multinationals for a bit of sponsorship…. maybe the lack of sponsorship says a lot about F1 perception in the US

    22. thepostalserviceisbroke (@thepostalserviceisbroke)
      19th May 2017, 18:48

      Anyone know if the livery color would have any impact on heat management at all? Especially in hot, sunny climes?

      1. @thepostalserviceisbroke Yes, it does. But not as much as the material does. A quote from Quora:

        A black object absorbs all wavelengths of light and reflects none and that’s why it appears black. Consequently, black absorbs the most heat. Objects that are white, on the other hand, reflect all wavelengths of light and that’s why they appear white to us, therefore absorb the least heat.

        That’s why houses in the middle east for example are almost always white or some sort of sandy hue. This is also very noticable with cars. I used to have a black car, which got extremely hot when parked in the sun even at 25C. After starting the car I regularly saw interior temperatures 10-15C higher than the outside temp. Now I own two white cars and while it hasn’t been that hot so far this year (only once 25C a couple of days ago) it was a mere 27C inside.
        Although I wouldn’t buy a white car for my daily commute anymore, due to the dirt it attracts even 5km after leaving the car wash, it does help with heat dissipation. Then again, I live in The Netherlands… which is not much better than the UK in terms of weather. So for those 2-3 months of 20C and up, I’ll just use the climate control a bit more.

    23. With the change in the size of the numbers and its positioning, we looked into making the entire car a little more visible.

      I think what you meant was “less visible”. Also: where are those numbers anyway? I only see GRO on the shark fin.

    24. Yeah i like it, nice classy shade of grey, and now they’re the only grey/silver cars on the grid. Yet people complain, no surprise there. I remember a few years ago Sauber showed up with a grey car, and everyone said “wow, nice livery”, but now apparently we won’t be able to differentiate it from the road…. Okay

      1. No one is complaining, just offering an opinion different to yours.

    25. They changed the livery due to the size and positioning of the numbers and then forgot to add any.

    26. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
      19th May 2017, 21:31

      Here’s a fantasy livery I think looks strong

      http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/51/1482516407-haas-f1-2017.png

      A bit busy but the core design I like

      1. Thats good design for Virgin racing.

    27. Luckily this is basically the only livery letting the side down. In 2014 we had a silver McLaren and Mercedes, grey Sauber, white Williams and a black Force India.

    28. Now with even less color!

    29. Michael Brown (@)
      19th May 2017, 22:53

      By which they mean that the grey will contrast with the rest of the grid

    30. It’s so boring! Boring!
      When are the teams going to get rid of these absolutely ridiculously dry corporate liveries. This is Formula One! Paint it Cyan or something! I thought McLaren are bad but this is just stupid!

    31. I think that they should go for just black and white, skip the grey, and maybe it will seem striking rather than boring.

    32. “Ok, so we’re in F1 to market our brand and gain exposure has anyone got any suggestions?”

      “We could make our livery the blandest, most forgettable, drab apology for a race car livery there has ever been. Seriously if there’s an invisible pain I think we should use that, but for now, let’s double down on grey. People love grey right?”

      1. *paint

    33. So it might look less bland on the real, shiny, car on track I suppose, but then why release matte images. Without those bigger drivers numbers, I note.

      In principle this is a cleaner design, but shades of grey, really?

      Seems Gene Haas must have been happy to take Ron Dennis’s role, and thrilled when Mclaren going orange left the ‘grey car on the grud’ slot open for him.

      1. Sundar Srinivas Harish
        20th May 2017, 13:24

        Maybe the Fifty Shades franchise is their new title sponsor :)

    34. C’mon any other colours than boring grey….

      1. Yeah, even it for sponsorship, Force India has balls to change the livery to pink….

        1. Looks stealthy…like that…! However, somewhat dull…How about something classy and gutsy in a
          Red, White and Blue…Will need that someday when they Podium…?

    35. The dullest and most blendy-in livery ever.
      https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/bf/1d/03/bf1d03c85c140f1d82f47711f06e5ceb.jpg

      Oh, and one of the greatest ever.

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