Pietro Fittipaldi feels the Haas F1 Team will have learned a lot about its VF-19 during the opening day of the in-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Tuesday, where the Brazilian completed one hundred and three laps.
Fittipaldi, the official test driver for Haas, took responsibility for the driving duties on Tuesday and set the seventh fastest time of the day, his 1:18.326s 2.810 seconds adrift of Valtteri Bottas up front, but the grandson of two-time Formula 1 World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi felt it was a good day in the car.
He thanked the team for the latest opportunity to test the car, having done so earlier in the season in the post-Bahrain Grand Prix test, and he felt they made the most of the time available to them on track to gather a lot of data he feels will benefit them in the forthcoming races.
“It was a good day with a lot of miles,” said Fittipaldi, the 2017 World Series Formula V8 3.5 series champion. “The car ran well, it was really reliable, so thank you again to the team for the great job there.
“We made full use of the test trying different things throughout the day and the pace was good too – I was really happy about that. It was good over both short and long runs, the balance of the car felt great.
“We’ll definitely be able to learn a lot from the day. I felt good in the car, it’s been a great day.”
Fittipaldi will hand the car over to regular race driver Kevin Magnussen on Wednesday for the second and final day of the test.
