What the first halo F1 car tells us about 2018

The Haas VF-18 is the first 2018 Formula 1 car to break cover, and confirms that, as expected for the second season of these regulations, it's all about following the design concept you believe in and optimising every component.

For Haas, this is going to be about achieving greater consistency after two erratic seasons in F1 with some great results and some very difficult weekends.

To do this, you need to understand how to get the car into its working window for a wide range of circuit conditions, which is the challenge Haas faces.

The new car looks very neat and tidy. Most impressively, the integration of the halo doesn't create too much of an eyesore.

It has been housed in a carbonfibre faring, minimising the effect it has on the aerodynamics. Also, the undercut airbox/headrest section looks like it has been exaggerated to help manage the wake from the halo.

Let's start the examination of the car at the front, with the caveat that these are renderings of the car and things could look different when it hits the track in testing later this month. It looks like there are a couple of extra slot gaps on the outboard section of the front wing flaps.

Also, the most forward element of the front wing main plane is a very short cord. Both of these features will help to manage the pitch sensitivity and produce more consistent front downforce.

The front suspension is conventional, with a fairly narrow base lower wishbone where it goes into the chassis. The angles of these components, combined with the top wishbone and pushrod-operated inboard suspension, are all optimised to manage the airflow coming off the front wing and help with the performance of the leading edge of the underfloor.

The two horizontal turning vanes on the sides of the chassis work in a similar way to the front suspension elements in that they pick up the wake coming off the trailing edge of the front wing and help realign it to improve the performance of the leading edge of the sidepods.

While Ferrari took the same approach with its sidepods this year, I don't think we can draw any conclusions yet about whether Haas keeping the design means Ferrari will too. I think Haas is sticking with more or less what it had to allow it to improve and there will be more from that than changing the car dramatically.

I'm very happy to see the reduced size of the engine cover fin, although what we are left with does look like a bit of an advertising hoarding. But at least it doesn't have a T-wing

They also reduce the lift that is created when the airflow accelerates over the top of the sidepod leading edge.

The bargeboard area follows the trend of the Ferrari and Haas from last year with the horizontal louvres. These are there to manage the turbulent wake coming off the trailing edge of the front tyre.

This then allows the inner bargeboard and undercut sidepods to pull more airflow through under the raised section of the chassis. This improves the performance of the front wing and, again, leading edge of the sidepod.

I'm very happy to see the reduced size of the engine cover fin, although what we are left with does look like a bit of an advertising hoarding. But at least it doesn't have a T-wing stuck on it. Or, at least, not yet.

The Coke bottle area inside of the rear tyres is dramatically undercut. This allows the airflow that is being displaced by the rear tyres to flow inside of the wheels. This helps the performance of the diffuser and reduces the overall drag by not pushing airflow around the outside of the tyre.

The area above the undercut is the airflow exit for the many radiators that are required to cool the various elements making up the power unit. By having it as a T-shape, it minimises the effect that the slow hot exit cooling air would have on the rear wing and diffuser.

By having it as a T-shape positioned between the top surface of the diffuser and the under surface of the rear wing, this minimises the effect that the slower-moving hot cooling exit air would have on these components. The airflow coming out of the radiator exits has been beaten around so much in going through the radiator core and it is travelling so slowly it is of very little use for creating downforce.

I can't really see much of the diffuser detail, but I'm sure it will have had a fair amount of windtunnel research time. This is also true of the wheelbase, as Haas hasn't revealed any facts or figures on that. Hopefully, testing at Barcelona will reveal all.

There's nothing startling jumping out at me about the first of the 2018 challengers to emerge. Then again, with minimal regulation changes I suppose it would be foolish to expect anything else.

The days are long gone when a team could surprise us all by introducing a four-wheel drive car, a six-wheeler, a fan car or even simple sliding skirts.

Now it's about optimising every little detail. And this is what Haas has done with this evolutionary car.