AUSTIN, Texas — Livery for each team is set to be revealed left and right less than a month before the Formula 1 (F1) season begins. But what does that mean for the vehicles themselves?
To begin, livery is a fancy way of explaining the new logos and designs that fans will see on the cars. Every year, a month before the season begins, the teams show off the new livery on either the vehicle they will be racing in, an old model of the vehicle or something unrelated. This year's season kicks off in Bahrain on March 5.
Some teams choose to remain secretive about what the car looks like until the the first day of testing for the upcoming season. Last year, Red Bull Racing took this path and showed off their livery on an F1 exhibition car and revealed the actual car on Feb. 23, 2022, which was the first day of testing.
While teams are gearing up to unveil their shiny new livery for the new season, Guenther Steiner, MoneyGram Haas F1 team principal, discussed another aspect that goes into the decision process: weight.
When it comes to F1 cars, performance is of upmost importance and a key point to that is the weight of the car. This season, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, the governing body of F1, has decreased the weight requirement by two pounds, meaning that the engineers and teams will have to work harder to make the car as light as possible – including the design’s paint use.
“I mean, people don’t think that the livery also is part of performing in the car, because more paint you put on, the heavier the car gets. And in Formula 1, every pound counts, you know, its performance,” Steiner said. “Last year we didn’t achieve [the minimum weight] and this year one of our things was we need to be at minimal weight, and everything counts.”
With that in mind, although every year teams strive to have their best design on the car, only the more important aspects of the logos are necessary to be included. The main logos, outside of the team’s own logo, are the sponsors. The larger the sponsor for a team, the bigger the inclusion on the car.
For Haas, which will be revealing its livery on Jan. 31, the evolution of the car’s design includes more than just the “Haas” name – it comes down to the team's sponsors, as well. This season, the Haas logo will include another name within it.
“We started off with having MoneyGram and … they are a great sponsor and obviously the livery … will be a nice livery,” Steiner said. “I think it will be a nice livery, you know, will it be the best? I mean, you know, that’s taste.”
The new logo, which includes the swoop from the MoneyGram logo, will debut on the VF-23. Each year, with new livery reveals, the teams will name their vehicles whichever title they have for their engines and chassis – in the case of Haas, the “VF” – and add the current season’s year at the end.
Livery reveals, although do not indicate how the vehicle will perform, act as their own race among the teams; the biggest teams have a tendency to reveal their livery earlier than the smaller ones, but Haas is taking an untraditional and surprising turn, just like it did performance-wise last season: the team will be the first to reveal its livery.