Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Haas launches today

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: The final three new Formula One cars of 2017 will appear for the first time today.

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Comment of the day

Williams don’t appear to be heading into one of their strongest seasons:

The teams that I think will beat them are McLaren and Force India. Both of these teams very nearly seemed to be as good as the Williams car by the end of the season. I don’t see why both of these teams won’t come back stronger.

I’m not even sure on how good the Renault will be. Considering it has the same engine as the Red Bull last year, how can it have been so dreadful in comparison? Can they really make a big enough difference to beat a team that last year had 138 points compared to themselves that got just 8. That chassis must have been really bad last year. I expect the car to be far better than it was and the Williams possibly to be affected by the weak driver line up but I’m still not convinced that Renault will beat them.

So from what I’ve said, it makes it look like I’m saying Williams could be sixth. I think seventh is more likely but I really do think they will be helped by the money that Stroll gets and also what Mercedes gave them. I seem far more confident in this team than anyone else here. It is my favourite after all!
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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26 comments on “Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Haas launches today”

  1. Fudge Kobayashi (@)
    26th February 2017, 0:27

    Gracias for the forum shout out Keith!

  2. I’ve already seen leaked images of this year’s Haas. I’m not sure if it was in its final livery or not (although it was in a Haas livery of some sort, so one would presume it was), but if so, prepare for something somewhat disappointing, dark, and dull. Last year’s looked like the machines they were advertising, but looked respectable. Sorry to go back to it again, however just on the McLaren livery score, take a look at this:
    https://instagram.com/p/BPXRpt8B-VL/
    It’s not perfect but it should serve as a lesson in design to this company McLaren hired (and McLaren themselves).

    I’ll be interested to see what Toro Rosso do. I’ve heard on here, light blue, so perhaps it will be a copy of the Red Bull livery but light blue instead. That would be very neat although there wouldn’t be much imagination or variation in that

    1. @strontium that mock up McLaren livery is far better than the real thing. It would be even better if the nose and part of the front wing were orange as well. It should have been mostly orange. I can’t quite get past all the rumours of it being orange and then finding that it’s only 50% orange, and the other colours end up being…. black…. and… white! Do you have any of the mock ups where the black is changed for white? Intrigued by how that looks.

      Fingers crossed that the Haas ain’t too dull. With the demise of Manor, there has been an opportunity for them to have a livery similar to the 2016 Manor with a Haas twist.

      As for Toro Rosso, I heard that the light blue was to tie in with the sugar free red bull drink, so I’m hoping that it’s mainly light blue, and ain’t 50% silver like on the drink cans.

    2. ExcitedAbout17
      26th February 2017, 7:45

      I’m not normally one to comment too much on livery, as I think the underlying shape and lines are more important.
      But (or For that reason), I don’t see the the mock-up to be an improvement as it hides the beautiful sweeping lines of the MCL32.

      The only thing the MCL32 lacks is some sponsor decal (and maybe a Dutch driver to celebrate the orange colour).

    3. Car should be all orange. Less is more, all these wavy lines and motifs. Let the form of the bodywork do the talking.

    4. I’m sorry but IMHO that McLaren suggested livery with the go faster swirls is tacky, they’d never go for something like that. I’m a designer btw.

      1. Those ‘go faster swirls’ are the McLaren logo, and they’ve had them on the top of the sidepods for years.

    5. Leave it out. Stop criticising the livery. The one you’ve linked to looks like last years. The new one is fresh.

      Now lets hope they can dinish better than 7th.

  3. Fudge Kobayashi (@)
    26th February 2017, 1:09

    Darker and duller as it may be, it looks better resolved than last years Haas livery which just screamed MIDFIELD from the off.

    1. This new livery doesn’t scream midfield, it screams back-marker. It’s the same livery but with worse colours

      1. Ever heard of the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”?

        I quite liked the Mclaren and Haas.

        1. Last year’s McLaren @guybrushthreepwood? The one where Ron said it would be a “striking colour scheme” and then the produced dark grey with thin red stripes?!

          Last year’s haas wasn’t bad but Manor was better

        2. If it’s fast, it’ll be beautiful.

  4. Re: COTD… I think the only teams Williams will definitely beat are Haas and Sauber. Beyond those two, I think they’re vulnerable because I expect the engine gaps to close a little and aero (an area Williams tend to be not-so-great in) to have a much bigger impact. And they have a pretty dodgy driver lineup.

    Last year’s Renault was a one-off… surprised they didn’t leave the Lotus name on it, because it was always going to be a bit of a disaster after the end to 2015 the team had. No time to make substantial changes to anything, no time to get the staff numbers up to works team level, engine was still a dud vs the Mercedes, two relatively inexperienced drivers.

    They obviously still won’t be at the level we might expect from a works Renault team in 2017 either, but I’ll be very surprised if they don’t beat Williams. Unless Mercedes have pulled even further clear with the engine, I think a better driver pairing and (what I expect to be) superior aero should be more than enough.

    And Toro Rosso, the same. They tend to build good cars and have two strong drivers (when Kvyat is feeling OK about himself) so as long as the Renault engine is in the ballpark, I can see them ahead of Williams too.

    Hope I’m wrong, though.

    1. Fudge Kobayashi (@)
      26th February 2017, 2:00

      Agree. The driver lineup at Williams will be their undoing this year.

    2. Have to agree @neilosjames, I think @thegianthogweed might be underestimating Renault a little, last year was always gonna be a dud coz lotus had barely developed the 2016 car due to lack of funds in 2015 and they didn’t know whether to design it for a Mercedes or a Renault engine, so the installation of the engine was a compromise. 2017 is still supposed to be a stepping stone for Renault but this is the start of a full “Works” design, where car is designed around their engine and ideal packaging, and they should soon start to bear fruit from an increase in personnel, I’m expecting a decent jump from Renault as the year goes on

      1. @3dom
        I am expecting Renault to be far better than they were last year. I just don’t think they will have made enough of an improvement to beat Williams. I don’t see why everyone is expecting the Williams car to be worse than it was last year. The driver line up will be worse but there could be a chance that the car could have been improved with the money they get from Stroll as well as what they got from Mercedes for releasing Bottas.

  5. From one of the RedBull videos, it seems the RB13 doesn’t have a shark fin either, and the livery is pretty similar to last year’s.

  6. Sviatoslav (@)
    26th February 2017, 7:26

    to COTD: I am pretty much sure that McLaren will be the third team this year. They will beat Ferrari quite easily: McLaren has much better racers, and an engine that will be on par with Ferrari’s engine.

    Hulk alone will earn more points for Renault than Massa and Stroll together for Williams. So I think McLaren, Renault, and Ferrari will do much better than Williams.

    1. @sviat We will have to wait and see. I personally find the McLaren chassis to not be on par with the Ferrari. So even if Ferrari did a very poor job with its 2017 engine, it will be very tough for McLaren to compete with them. The chassis McLaren has is much closer to what Renault has on hand, and provided Renault has produced a superior engine than Honda for 2017, I rather see Renault and McLaren in the same ball park.

    2. @sviat
      I may have been a bit optimistic about Williams but I seriously doubt that Hulkenburg alone will get more points at Renault than Massa and Stoll at Williams put together will.
      In my view, Hulkenburg didn’t have a great year last season. Certainly not as strong as Perez. If you add Massa’s points up and add just 25% of what Bottas scored to what Massa got, then Massa’s points would add up to more than what Hulkenberg got. I’m pretty sure that Stroll will be able to get more that 25% of the points Bottas would be capable of.
      I know these won’t be very accurate things to compare it with but I think it will make what you said look extremely unlikely.
      I don’t think Renault will be able to move past Williams any more than Force India did this year. As I said, I’m not certain they even will finish ahead. But we don’t know.

  7. Jordan King is right, but I can’t escape the irony of him being the one to say it.

  8. Can’t wait for the final 3 launches.

    Not because I want to see what they look like (looks mean nothing) but because it means we’re just 1 day from seeing them running on track for the first time in 2017.

  9. Cotd wise.. Williams only has one way, going down. They outperformed for several seasons.. Outperformed their budget that is. Everything they do beyond p5 is good result. Just like SFI.

    It is their benefit Renault and McLaren are underperforming. Renault last year was in shambles, this year they should be on Williams level, despite factory backing…

    SFI , Williams, STR are kings of racing on a budget… Sauber and Haas have yet to prove themselves in new era… On the same midfield level that is….

  10. I seem to be the odd one out, but I’m tipping Williams for a good season in terms of the odd very good result. With 30% more down-force to begin with, this year there will be far more races where teams will be looking for minimal drag for a given down-force. If Williams can recreate anything of the low-drag excellence of 2014 they can still be very competitive at certain tracks where they’ve done very well recently – e.g. Silverstone & Austria. Perhaps it is unfounded optimism, but I’d love to see Massa back on the podium.

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