Haas will hand Pietro Fittipaldi two half days in its VF-19 during next week’s opening Formula 1 pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Fittipaldi joined Haas as its official test and reserve driver for 2019 and last year sampled its VF-18 during the post-season running in Abu Dhabi.
Fittipaldi, the 2017 V8 Formula 3.5 champion, will drive next Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, in order to enhance correlation between Haas’ simulator and on-track results.
“To have Pietro in the car is a big element for our simulator work,” said team boss Guenther Steiner.
“We’re always trying to improve that. We need to have him in the car to validate if the simulator program is going well or not. This is vital to our program going forward.”
Fittipaldi spent 2018 competing in the World Endurance Championship, IndyCar and Super Formula, with his campaign interrupted by a double leg fracture.
“I’m really look forward to the test,” said Fittipaldi, who has yet to outline any 2019 race programme.
“I got to test the 2018 car at the end of last year and now I get to try the 2019 car in preseason testing. Any time you get to drive a Formula 1 car, it’s something you really look forward to.
“The main focus on the test will be to assist the team to develop the car as much as possible before the first race of the season. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of test items the team will want to go through.
“We’ll want to see how reliable the new car is, I’m sure we’ll be aiming for a lot of miles.
“The goal at the end of the day, as a driver, is to go as fast as possible, to drive the car as fast as you can, but it’s also to give the team really good feedback. That’s crucial to the development of the car before the first race.”
Haas is set to shake down its VF-19 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya today (Friday).
Regular racers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen will share duties across the remainder of the test days.
