The Haas F1 Team finally conducted the fire-up of its new car, the US outfit's Ferrari-powered VF-21 roaring into life in the team's garage in Bahrain on Thursday.
Haas had been hoping to fire up its 2021 car last month at its factory in Banbury. However, UK travel restrictions and mandatory quarantine measures meant that Ferrari's engineers could not be present to oversee the process.
But all required personnel were gathered at the Bahrain International Circuit to fire up the VF-21 which will be officially presented in Sakhir's pitlane on Friday morning before the start of pre-season testing.
VF-21 - Fired Up ✅#HaasF1 pic.twitter.com/rLgbooPxto
— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) March 10, 2021
Haas heads into the 2021 season with an all-new line-up, entrusting its cars to rookies Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin.
The young guns will be thrown in at F1's deep end, with just three days of pre-season testing to get up to speed with their new mount and their new environment.
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner is hoping for a trouble-free test at Sakhir this weekend.
"I think that is one of the difficult things this year that these guys don’t get a lot of driving before going into the first race weekend but it is what it is and you cannot change it," said Steiner.
"The only thing that we try to do to make sure that we do as much running without issues.
"You always try to do that anyway, try to go there without issues but a little more emphasis on that one because every minute counts now."
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