Antonio Giovinazzi says he hopes to close the gap to Romain Grosjean across the remainder of his Friday practice session, after he received his first Haas run at the British Grand Prix.
Ferrari reserve driver Giovinazzi, who competed in the opening two races of the year as a replacement for the unfit Pascal Wehrlein at Sauber, has been recruited to carry out seven FP1 sessions for Haas this season.
The first of those seven came during Friday morning’s opening session at Silverstone, in which the Italian placed 16th, two positions and four-tenths of a second down on team-mate Grosjean, both drivers having set their best lap on the Soft tyres.
Giovinazzi expressed delight at his first experience of the VF-17, the third different current-year Formula 1 car he has driven in 2017, but hopes to close the gap to Grosjean across the remainder of the year.
“I think it was a good session,” Giovinazzi, runner-up in last year’s GP2 series, told Motorsport Week.
“Of course to start in FP1 at Silverstone, it’s one of the hardest tracks for these cars,[but] it was a really good run.
“I was only four tenths from Romain, so I’m really happy; Romain is a driver who’s really strong in high speed [corners], so for this track I think he’s a good reference.
“My target was to take confidence with the car in high speed and everything, so it was important and a good session.”
On whether he regarded the 2017 runs as an audition for a 2018 race seat, Giovinazzi replied: “Now I’m just focusing on these seven FP1s, to do my job and to be more close as possible to Romain at the end of the season and then for next year we’ll see.”
Giovinazzi will return to the cockpit of the VF-17 during the next event in Hungary.
