Antonio Giovinazzi’s FP1 crash did not delight Guenther Steiner, but he reckoned it would not have an impact on Haas’ FP2 session.
Haas boss Guenther Steiner dismissed Antonio Giovinazzi’s accident during first practice for the United States Grand Prix, although he did say he wasn’t particularly happy with the Italian driver.
Giovinazzi participated in two FP1 sessions as part of a partnership of Haas with Ferrari, at the Italian and US Grands Prix. However, because he has made more than two Grand Prix starts, this does not count towards the young driver criteria.
The former Alfa Romeo driver crashed into the fast sweepers in Sector 1 after only three laps of his session in Kevin Magnussen’s car. Despite the fact that he was able to restart, his session ended early because he burned out the clutch while attempting to escape the advertising hoarding.
Steiner expressed his disappointment following the first practice session despite being happy that the car had not sustained any significant damage.
“I feel okay because the car will be ready to go out in FP2 because getting out, he must have got hooked up somewhere, and he burnt the clutch out,” Steiner explained to Sky Sports F1.
“It overheated and we cannot take the risk of not changing it because then you are afraid you cannot do FP2 and we didn’t have an FP1 with that car.”
“We’ll get the car fixed and get it going – it’s the front wing and sidepods. Obviously on your third lap to put it in the wall is not fantastic I would say at least.”
Steiner also stated that Pietro Fittipaldi would replace Giovinazzi as the driver of the car for the final three race weekends, as Haas will use Fittipaldi in Mexico and Abu Dhabi to meet its young driver requirements.
Giovinazzi and Mick Schumacher were ranked 20th and 15th respectively in the session.
