Before the official pre-season test in Bahrain, the Haas Formula 1 team put its customer’s Ferrari engine, the VF-21, into operation for the first time.
Teams typically run the engines in their new cars at their factories at the earliest opportunity to check their systems before an initial shakedown run.
However, Haas was unable to start the genset at its Banbury base as the Ferrari engineers required on the job were unable to travel to the UK due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
The requirement of quarantine on arrival in the UK and again on return to Italy was considered impractical.
For the same reason, the team in the UK did not do a day of filming or shakedown and will instead give the car its first laps when testing begins in Bahrain on Friday morning.
Team boss Günther Steiner announced last month that the fire would be postponed to Sakhir, and at the same time insisted that this would not be a big problem as so much of the car had been taken over from 2021 – although the PU itself has undergone major changes.
Mick Schumacher, Haas F1 Team
Photo by: Haas F1 Team
“The fire will be in Bahrain,” Steiner told Autosport.
“With all the flyaway races, the engines go back to Maranello anyway, and then they go back to the circuit and get straight into the car. So it’s nothing new.
“But it’s not ideal because even if it’s a drag-off car, there are still some new parts. You want to do as much as possible at home.
Insight: Why Haas is ready to sacrifice its 2021 F1 season
“If you can’t, you have to find ways, but I think we’ll be fine. As long as it sounds good the first time we run it, it’s not a problem! “
The team tweeted a video today suggesting the fire went according to plan.
VF-21 – Fired 
# HaasF1 pic.twitter.com/rLgbooPxto
– Haas F1 Team (@ HaasF1Team) March 10, 2021
Haas wasn’t the only team affected by UK travel restrictions. Renault engineers who had traveled from France to witness the first Alpine fire and the subsequent shakedown at Silverstone first had to be quarantined.
Honda’s UK-based AlphaTauri engineers flew to Italy for a test with Yuki Tsunoda in an old Toro Rosso in early January and then stayed on site for several weeks to oversee the fire and shooting day of the ATR02 factory in Imola in late February.
The post Haas lights the F1 car VF-21 before the Bahrain test first appeared on monter-une-startup.
