Haas hopes Fittipaldi versatility will help on debut

Pietro Fittipaldi’s atypical career path will assist his prospects when making his Formula 1 debut in Bahrain this weekend, says Haas boss Guenther Steiner.

Haas reserve Fittipaldi has been drafted in to replace Romain Grosjean in the wake of the Frenchman suffering burns in a violent accident in Sunday’s race.

It will be Fittipaldi’s first appearance in a grand prix weekend though he tested Formula 1 machinery with Haas in both 2018 and 2019.

After winning the Formula V8 3.5 title in 2017 Fittipaldi competed in the World Endurance Championship, Super Formula and IndyCar rather than moving into Formula 2.

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“For sure it won’t be easy for him but we didn’t take him with us as a mascot,” said Steiner.

“We knew that this could be coming and we didn’t take him with us because he didn’t know what to do.

“I was more worried about Covid-19 cases among the drivers rather than injuries, so I asked him to come out here for three weeks.

“At the beginning he was like ‘OK, that’s a lot of time’ but I said ‘we are not taking you as a mascot, you know. You are here to perform a duty if something happens’.

“Therefore, I couldn’t put anybody else in because he has put a lot of effort in to being around.

“As much as you guys think it’s cool to be around doing nothing at a race weekend, after a while that gets old as well for a 20-something year old.

“We know there will be challenges, it will be difficult with our car performance this year to have a good result, especially on this race track where it is three straights connected by three corners – maybe more corners but not many. I think he did some oval racing, so maybe that helps him!

“He will do a good job and it will help that he has been in a lot of teams and in a lot of different cars in his career to adapt to something.

“We will try to help him as much as possible and Kevin [Magnussen] has said that if there is anything he needs he can come and ask me. So we will try to help him as much as possible and as we can to make successful.”