The dark grey, light grey, and striking red-toned livery of the Haas VF-16 was derived from that of Haas Automation's CNC vertical and horizontal machining centers, turning centers, and CNC rotary tables and indexers: a ‘complete' line of high-productivity CNC products.

The Oxnard, California-based Haas Automation Inc. employs around 1300 people, and exports approximately 60% of its annual production to more than 60 countries. There are close to 185,000 Haas CNC machine tools installed around the world, supported by a network of 170 Haas Factory Outlets (HFOs) - independently owned sales and technical service businesses, dedicated to providing industry-leading support, wherever a customer is based.

The VF-16 demonstrates Haas Automation's - and Gene Haas' - commitment to technology and innovation to a passionate, global audience, many of whom are already Haas customers, or who perhaps work in the precision engineering and manufacturing sectors.

"Just as Haas Automation's CNC machine tools evolve continually, becoming better and more efficient as time goes by, our methodology behind the VF-16 was to make it the best evolution of a good F1 car," explained Guenther Steiner, team principal, Haas F1 Team. "As we're a new team, we studied what the successful F1 teams were doing, so we had a strong baseline for the direction we needed to go with our design.

"We need to go out there and show that we can do the job - that's our first objective," states Steiner. "Then show we can finish races, that we are respected by the fans and other teams in the paddock and, of course, that we can score points. That's the goal!"

The VF-16 is being tested on-track at Barcelona Feb. 22-25 and March 1-4, before its debut race, the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, March 20, in Melbourne.
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