Haas to unveil 2016 F1 car at Barcelona test

Although the American outfit was the first to pass the mandatory 2016 crash tests, it has elected to join a number of other outfits in holding back revealing its new challenger until shortly before testing begins.

The Ferrari-powered car, which will be driven by Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez, will be rolled out in the Barcelona pit lane on the morning of February 22.

Haas has not given any hints yet about its colour scheme for 2016, but did release a corporate rendering last week to highlight its F1 activity featuring a silver-and-black livery (pictured above).

Launch timing

Although testing is starting later than normal this year, F1 teams are continuing their traditions of moving away from the separate launch events that used to take place.

Instead, for technical reasons, to keep their designs secret for longer and for expenditure reasons, teams prefer to either unveil cars online or wait until the Barcelona test.

At the moment, McLaren has scheduled the earliest launch date with an online reveal on February 21 – but it is possible that Ferrari will reveal its car with a web launch a few days before that.

2016 F1 car launch dates:

Team	Engine	Drivers	Launch date
Mercedes	Mercedes	Lewis Hamilton  Nico Rosberg	TBA
Ferrari	Ferrari	Sebastian Vettel  Kimi Raikkonen	TBA
Williams	Mercedes	Valtteri Bottas  Felipe Massa	TBA
Red Bull	Renault	Daniil Kvyat  Daniel Ricciardo	February 17 (livery)
Force India	Mercedes	Sergio Perez  Nico Hulkenberg	TBA
Renault	Renault	Pastor Maldonado  Jolyon Palmer	February 3 (team launch)
Toro Rosso	Ferrari	Max Verstappen  Carlos Sainz Jr.	TBA
Sauber	Ferrari	Felipe Nasr  Marcus Ericsson	TBA
McLaren	Honda	Jenson Button  Fernando Alonso	February 21
Manor	Mercedes	TBA TBA	February 22
Haas	Ferrari	Romain Grosjean  Esteban Gutierrez	February 22