The chassis was designed by James Key, Christoph Zimmermann, Pierre Waché and Seamus Mullarkey with the car being powered with a customer Ferrari engine.

When Kobayashi had a not so successful race, Pérez made advantage of making one less pit stop, finishing an impressive eighth.

In Australia, the team paid tribute to the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami with a Swiss and a Japanese flag on the engine cover.

The HF1-018 is advertised as the fastest track day car in the world and is powered by a small capacity turbo charged engine similar to that used in the 2014 onwards Formula One championship but does not use a KERS system as the original C30 did.

In June 2018, Billy Monger drove a Formula One racing car for the first time when he tested the HF1-018 at the Rockingham Motor Speedway in Corby.

A documentary feature about Monger's first Formula One drive was shown as part of Sky F1's coverage of the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix.