Haas’ major reworking of its VF-23 chassis has appeared for the first time ahead of the United States Grand Prix.
The team, which fell to ninth in the championship standings at the last round, is the latest to move its development in line with the trend established by dominant champions Red Bull. The revised design features the steeply sloping sidepods familiar from the cars which have won all bar six of the 39 grands prix since the current technical regulations were introduced.Kevin Magnussen is encouraged by the scale of development the team has brought for its home race. “It’s good, it’s nice to see the upgrade on the car finally,” he said.
“We haven’t had many upgrades to the car this year. It’s been a tough year in terms of just finding performance. The guys have been really struggling this year to make gains on the car we’ve had.”
The team does not expect an immediate improvement in its performance from the upgrade, and will have only a single practice session to evaluate it before they are locked into their set-up for the sprint event. However Magnussen hopes what they learn from it will ensure they are on the right track for 2024.
“This upgrade is an exciting one because it’s very different,” he said. “On paper it’s not actually meant to be more downforce as such, but it’s a new concept and it’s hopefully the concept that we’ll be using for next year’s car. And if not a big gain in performance, then at least that it’s some good learning and research into next year.”
While the update may not increase the overall downforce of the car, Magnussen says the team hopes that by improving its dynamics while cornering they will be able to treat their tyres better.
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“A big problem with our car this year has been that it doesn’t treat the tyres very well in the race,” he said. “So we often just struggle with tyre life in the races. The pace that other people are able to maintain, we seem to fall off much more.”
“If you can [improve] the characteristics of the car, the through-corner balance and hopefully the structure and the strength of the flow on the car that could solve that issue or help that issue,” he explained. “So that’s of course what we are hoping. Nonetheless, it’s exciting.”
Haas VF-23 upgrade pictures
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2023 United States Grand Prix
- US GP was Mercedes’ best race of 2023 despite disqualification – Wolff
- Singapore and Austin retirements cost me top 10 championship place – Ocon
- United States Grand Prix result unchanged as FIA rejects Haas’ call for review
- Sargeant admits he’s ‘struggled to use all the downforce at times’ in F1
- Mercedes’ Brazilian GP set-up was “conservative” after US GP disqualification
BasCB (@bascb)
20th October 2023, 7:26
Ha, looks like the whole field is converging on the RB design now then
lynn-m
20th October 2023, 16:44
@bascb So as many of us warned the overly restrictive regulations is forcing everyone down the same path and thus turning F1 into a pseudo-spec series.
May as well just rename it to Indycar+ or GP1 because thats what the Liberty media show over sport clowns are turning this once great sport into.
F1 is in such a sad state since been taken over by these clowns. Turned into basically a spec series with pathetically restrictive regulations, Success penalty like system, Blocking new teams from entering & putting the show above the sport & creating nonsense like Abu Dhabi 2021 because of that.
Nick T.
20th October 2023, 20:41
The car’s updates aren’t particularly Red Bull’esque. The media just loves to inevitably say that every car update is copying RBR.
Anyway, the rules weren’t so restrictive that the exact same thing didn’t happen over the history of F1. One designer / team comparatively nailed the rules compared to all the other teams. Then about 2-3 teams fighting for the best of the rest (that’s an improvement with usually 1 or 2 teams w/a shot at best of the rest). Then you’ve got 4-5 solid midfielders and 2 useless teams.
AlexS
20th October 2023, 10:49
Nice effort. Sadly means everyone is going Redbull.
PacificPR (@streydt)
20th October 2023, 12:22
Looks a lot like a B version – as in Bull. But curious to see how it will perform and if it solves the tyre degradation problems. Wouldn’t be surprised if this is also their 2024 car..