Formula 1: We're about to find out if Haas' 2021 gamble pays off for 2022

Haas have become the first Formula 1 team to reveal their 2022 car, with them publishing a series of digital renders of their new machine across social media.

The 2022 campaign represents a sense of the unknown for every team on the grid, thanks to the raft of regulation changes that are coming into force and, in that sense, it’s an opportunity for every team to reset and try and climb themselves up the established order.

Indeed, for Haas, 2022 also represents a moment of reckoning where they’ll learn just whether they were right to write off the 2021 campaign before a wheel had been turned, in order to ensure they were fully ready for F1’s new era.

For drivers Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin, the hope has to be that the team’s gamble of putting all their eggs into the 2022 basket is going to pay off.

Both rookies in 2021, they had to be content with largely making up the numbers and fighting between themselves for the lowest spots on the grid in qualifying and in the classification of a Grand Prix.

Character building, maybe, but both are racers and that is what they will want to be doing in 2022.

Make no mistake, Haas will want exactly the same as them and, in some ways, you could understand them putting all their resources into 2022. They’re not the richest team in the paddock by a long stretch and if they have got it right for this season they could be feasibly competitive for several years to come.

Few, if any, are expecting Mercedes levels of dominance from Haas, obviously, but a return to challenging in and around the top 10 isn’t an outlandish goal to have and, ultimately, it’s something they should be striving for, particularly after letting 2021 pass by without any real in-season development.

The new rules