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The Haas Formula 1 team looks set to complete additional running at Formula 1’s final pre-season test in Bahrain.
The American-registered team was forced to sit out Thursday morning’s four-hour session after the late arrival of cargo from the United Kingdom.
Mechanical problems affecting the plane set to transport the team’s equipment meant it wasn’t able to get on track until Thursday afternoon.
However, the squad looks to have been given an opportunity to make up for the lost time, with additional running on Friday and Saturday.
It’s understood that Haas will run with Kevin Magnussen for an additional hour on Friday night.
On Saturday morning, the squad will take to the circuit an hour earlier than the rest of the field and remain on track for two hours after all other teams.
The extra running makes up for the four hours lost on the opening morning of what is the second and final F1 pre-season test.
“We need to make up now every day,” admitted team boss Guenther Steiner.
“We can make up four hours of testing, but we need to make it up at the end of the day. We’re not allowed to run on Sunday.
“Because of the regulations, it needs to be three days in a row,” he added.
“And it needs to be just unanimously voted that we can do it, otherwise we can’t do it.”
Initially it had been suggested that the squad simply run for four hours on Sunday morning, the day after the hit out was set to conclude, though that move was blocked.
According to Steiner, McLaren voted against that plan, with the additional time on Friday and Saturday a seemingly acceptable compromise.
While happy it would be afforded the opportunity to regain the lost time, the Haas boss was less pleased with the workload that would place on his crew.
“We just ended up in a situation, a bad situation, and we actually worked hard to make the best out of it, and now we would get penalised again, to have to run at night,” Steiner said.
“Some of the guys worked 30 hours in a row to get where we are, and now if I go and ask them again to work harder overnight, because we need to work longer at night, I don’t think that is fair.
“There is no advantage, if we go testing in the evening – or Sunday we put another half a day on. There is no advantage, we just wouldn’t like another disadvantage.”
Haas yesterday completed 47 laps of running with reserve driver Pietro Fittipaldi in the four hours available to the team, putting it broadly on par (proportionally) with the likes of Williams, AlphaTauri, and Aston Martin.
Testing in Bahrain continues today, fans can follow the action with Speedcafe.com’s Mobil 1 Live Updates.
