Fittipaldi to test in Bahrain

It has been confirmed by Gene Haas, that Pietro Fittipaldi will be testing in Bahrain this week for the American team.

This comes as Nikita Mazepin got axed from his seat on Saturday, as well as the teams sponsor. The decision to cut ties with both came in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There are a few options in who could partner up with Mick Schumacher, one including Pietro Fittipaldi the Test and Reserve driver for the team.

According to BBC Sport, there are three drivers on Haas’ shortlist, those being: Pietro Fittipaldi, Oscar Piastri and Jehan Daurvala.

“There was a lot of intense criticism about the Ukraine invasion and it was just getting overwhelming,” team owner Haas told The Associated Press. “We can’t deal with all that, our other sponsors can’t deal with all that. We’re in the process of looking at several candidates, we’ll see who is available and what we have to deal with, but we’ll have somebody by Wednesday. Pietro will definitely be in it, that’s what he’s for, he’s the test driver. I think we’d obviously like to get someone with a bit more actual experience. We just have to see what’s available.”

My Opinion-

Obviously they needed someone in that second seat for testing and quick, that someone is Fittipaldi, so Haas have now got one thing ticked of their list. But I can understand why they are taking their time to decide for the seat for the season.

I’ve seen lots of possibilities over the past few days from Hulkenberg to Giovinazzi to Magnussen as well as the ones already mentioned above. But with Gene Haas saying they would ‘obviously like to get someone with a bit more experience’ it does make me think that having someone with experience is good but would they prefer that over having someone who is new to F1 e.g Piastri.