Stake F1 Team and Haas hit the track for shakedown

The Stake Formula 1 Team and Haas have turn into the first F1 squads to take to the race track in a 2024 automobile forward of the official pre-season testing in Bahrain.1

Except the official pre-season testing and the post-season tyre check, groups have hardly any alternatives to hold out testing. If a crew needs to provide their junior drivers an opportunity of driving an F1 automobile, they’ll solely use older machines underneath the Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) provision. That is a chance McLaren have already utilized in the previous two years to provide IndyCar racers Colton Herta and Pato O’Ward the probability of proving themselves in an F1 automobile.

Pirelli additionally carries out in-season check to carry out tyre check for the following season. The Milan-based tyre provider has labored with a number of groups over the course of the previous years, when outfits can use their precise automobile, however in ‘blind’ situations that implies that they’ve to make use of the setup Pirelli dictates and they’ll solely use elements which were already utilized in earlier race weekends. On high of that, Pirelli shares the data gained throughout these runs with all the different groups, serving to them with the automobile improvement.

Moreover, each F1 outfit is entitled to hold out two ‘Promotional Events’ – or filming days – throughout a yr with their present challenger. Many groups elect to run at the least one in every of the days previous to pre-season testing, utilizing the alternative to verify the primary capabilities of their brand-new automobiles.

While groups have been solely allowed to 200km throughout a filming day, a tweak to the rules this yr has seen the most track time elevated to 400km.

The Sauber F1 Team that may race underneath the Stake F1 Team banner this yr confirmed off its 2024 F1 automobile on February 5, revealing an entire deparature of the red-dominated color scheme that the Hinwil primarily based crew used throughout its Alfa Romeo period. Instead, the Swiss outfit will use a brand new color scheme with fluorescent inexperienced on a carbon base this yr.

The subsequent two seasons mark a commercially bizarre time for the Hinwil primarily based F1 outfit as Alfa Romeo has left as title sponsor, however Audi which can take over the crew from 2026 will solely arrive in two years’ time.

The crew’s 2024 F1 automobile, the C44 has hit the track for the first time in Barcelona with the outfit having carried out a shakedown check at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya forward of the three-day check session in Bahrain. Interestingly, the C44 didn’t carry the Stake logos due to their strict promoting guidelines concerning playing in Spain. Moreover, with playing promoting being prohibited in a number of international locations, the crew will have the ability to use the footage recorded throughout the filming with none limitations.

Today noticed Haas perform a shakedown check with its 2024 F1 automobile, the VF-24. It was Nico Hulkenberg who jumped into the VF-24 to finish the first laps with the new machine. The American F1 outfit is ready to finish a second shakedown occasion in Bahrain the day earlier than official pre-season testing will get underway.