Revealed: New F1 car damaged during private shakedown test

Oliver Harden
The cars approach Turn 1 at the start of the Singapore Grand Prix

Lando Norris's McLaren leads the pack at the start of the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix

Esteban Ocon’s new Haas VF-25 car picked up damage during the team’s shakedown run at Silverstone last weekend, it has emerged.

Haas’s new car for the F1 2025 season made its on-track debut at the British Grand Prix venue last Sunday, with new signing Ocon at the wheel following his arrival from Alpine over the winter.

Haas VF-25 suffers damage during maiden F1 2025 outing

Unlike McLaren and Williams, who provided extensive coverage of the first outings of their new cars at Silverstone, Haas opted against issuing an official report of the test.

Images on social media, taken by the photographer Cameron Hardy, have revealed that the VF-25’s debut did not go entirely to plan.

One image shows damage to the right-hand sidepod of Ocon’s car with the cover missing.

The cause of the issue is unknown, but it is believed that the sidepod was quickly repaired to allow Ocon to continue his running mostly untroubled.

Haas are believed to have revealed their full F1 2025 livery at Silverstone even though teams understood to have been forbidden from unveiling their permanent colour schemes for the new season until F1’s season-launch event later today (Tuesday).

McLaren and Williams took to the track with special camouflage liveries last week in order to adhere to the request.

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A report in Italy, meanwhile, has claimed that Red Bull junior team VCARB have delayed their shakedown until after Tuesday’s O2 Arena extravaganza as they do not have a special livery prepared.

VCARB originally planned to debut their F1 2025 car at Imola on Monday, it has been claimed.

However, concerns that the team’s livery would leak online has persuaded the team to postpone the run until Wednesday, 24 hours after the F1 75 launch event.

With Williams’ special one-off livery last week carrying a striking resemblance to the team’s recent race liveries, the Grove-based team have been tipped to unveil a bold new look at the London launch.

Williams secured their first title sponsor in five years last week, with Australian firm Atlassian joining in what the team describe as the biggest commercial deal in their 48-year history.

It is common for title partners to be granted the power to dictate the car’s colour scheme, with Williams competing with the famous Martini stripes during the team’s partnership with the alcohol brand between 2014 and 2018.

Atlassian’s colour scheme is predominantly white with blue accents, the same colours seen on the new race overalls of drivers Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon.

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