Interactive: Compare the new Haas VF-20 with last year’s car

2020 F1 season

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The first new car for the 2020 F1 season to appear has a lot riding on it. Haas stumbled badly last year, slipping to last-but-one in the constructors’ championship.

It was a doubly cruel blow for the team as it appeared to be in great shape after pre-season testing and, indeed, the first race of the year, where Kevin Magnussen took sixth place. But soon afterwards it slumped into a depressingly familiar pattern where the car would often qualify well, only to struggle with its tyres in traffic, allowing their rivals to pass.

An upgrade package at the Spanish Grand Prix made things worse rather than better. It took a long time for the team to discover the fundamental problems with its car which had caused the problem. Once they had been identified, the team reverted to a specification not too dissimilar from the launch images of the car you can see below.

Haas admitted it would take until the new season to address them properly. The VF-20 is the product of last year’s painful lessons and as a result there will be many anxious faces at Haas not only when it tests for the first time but, just as importantly, over the opening races.

With little change in the technical regulations compared to last year the VF-20 is a clear evolution of its predecessor. And while teams are likely to hold back their major aerodynamic changes until later, the car’s front wing already sports a noticeably different shape, following the trend for ‘outswept’ designs which its fellow Ferrari users preferred.

At the rear of the car there is little indication of any significant changes in the layout of its Ferrari power unit, which was widely thought to be the best in the championship last year. However the car’s air intake is noticeably different to last year’s, adopting a triangular shape more similar to that used by the factory team.

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Use the sliders below to transition between images of the 2020 and 2019 Haas F1 cars.

Front

Side

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Note these images may have been altered for ease of comparison and should not be used as a reference for measurements.

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Author information

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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25 comments on “Interactive: Compare the new Haas VF-20 with last year’s car”

  1. With a number of people stating (in the other article) that this is just a 2019 Ferrari, would it be possible to get a similar side-by-side with that Ferrari?

    1. My thoughts exactly

    2. I was literally thinking precisely that as I scrolled down to the comments.

    3. Or… look back to Keith’s side-by-side comparo of the 2018/2019 Ferrari and replace the good looking parts with Rich bland parts.

    4. Saw this on Twitter

      1. @johnmilk – now that is very interesting. Thank you.

  2. Is it just me or the last year’s sidepots towards the rear end look thinner than this year’s?

    Also nice copy of Ferrari’s nose cone and the front wing philosphy. They’ll finish 8th this season, I bet.

    1. They copied the triangular air intake above the driver’s head too.

    2. It looks very much as the Ferrari 2019 to me. look st the instagram picture both compared Haas and Ferrari

      The floor is much bigger then the Haas 2019 and the rake is a bit less those are the instant points we can see (Frontwing, and air inlet ofcourse too)

  3. Judging by the amount of rake on that second picture, HAAS are clearly very confident in the horsepower of the Ferrari engine. More rake = more downforce, but also a fair bit more drag. (Incidentally just as much to blame for the early 2010s Red Bull’s top speed deficit as the Renault engines)

    1. @yossarian, that wasn’t necessarily just about drag, but more of a conscious set up choice on gearing ratios.

      It’s been noted that, if you look at the way in which Red Bull often set their car up in the 2010s, they tended to run a comparatively short top gear ratio when compared to their rivals. It was a conscious decision to prioritise acceleration over end of straight speed, meaning that they were close to, or even hitting, the rev limiter some distance before the end of the straight – if you look at, say, the onboard footage from Monza in 2012, which was probably one of the more extreme examples, Vettel was hitting the rev limiter halfway down the straights.

      We know that, when Vettel was disqualified for his fuel sample violation in Abu Dhabi in 2012 and had to start from the pit lane, amongst the changes the team made to the car was to fit a longer 7th gear ratio – with his top speed being noticeably higher during the race than it had been in qualifying, where he’d used the shorter 7th gear ratio. It looks like it was more of a set up choice than Red Bull’s cars producing that much more drag than their rivals.

  4. It’s the same car.

    1. Front suspension is completely different, probably an attempt to solve tyre usage issues.

    2. agree with john H…..it is last years car

  5. @john-h different paint.

  6. Last years car with minimal developments and a new coat of pain released to show the colours.
    We wont see the new car for a few days yet.

  7. Thoughts on the rear bodywork aft of the coke bottle? The two protruding domes of bodywork for??

  8. Most significantly wheelbase is quite a bit longer on 2020 car, trusting so much in Ferrari’s straight line advantage I guess? It didn’t really work out for Ferrari in 2019.. I really don’t have a good eye for nuances but just looking at that one thing I really don’t think it bodes well for Haas. My guess is probably as good as a chimpanze’s when it comes to comparind chassis, especially in such a close midfield.

  9. Uh its all black. Cant see any difference. Maybe the stop watch will be clearer.

  10. Any comparison with 2019 Ferrari?

  11. Jesper Kristensen
    7th February 2020, 18:27

    Aaahmmm… GUUUYYS!!!!!
    Haas F1 only states its their new look, not their new car….. So keep those conspiracies going 😂😂😂😂

  12. That livery… 🥱😴😴

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