Giovinazzi seeking answers after 'worst ever Friday' for Haas

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Antonio Giovinazzi's latest opportunity to show what he can do in a Formula 1 car lasted only eight laps before he crashed out of free practice at the Hungaroring.

The Italian - who is part of Ferrari's driver development programme - was in charge of Kevin Magnussen's car for FP1. However he spun out and hit the barriers side-on just 40 minutes into the morning session, and was unable to take any further part in practice.

"We still don't know, to be honest," Giovinazzi said when he was asked what happened. "I had a few laps and to be honest the lap time was already quite good.

"I just lost the car with aggressive step oversteer on entry, so I think we had a problem," he added. "There was nothing I could do, to be honest. We’re checking to see what happened

"We are checking the data and I hope we can find it soon.

"The track time is important for me. I lost out on 50 minutes of FP1, so I’m disappointed," he said. "And also for Kevin."

The repairs continued well into the afternoon, and Magnussen only came out on track ten minutes before the end of FP2. He was able to complete 11 laps before the chequered flag.

"It’s been a tough day not getting much out of the Friday sessions," the Danish driver admitted. "I only got a couple of laps at the end of FP2 on low fuel.

"We don’t have a great feeling for things at the moment but, hopefully, I’ll catch up a bit tomorrow. For sure, it’s going to make things a little bit difficult."

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It wasn't a great day for Magnussen's team mate Romain Grosjean, either. He suffered a spin and made light contact with the barrier early in FP1, and struggled for pace and handling all day.

“A pretty tough day for the whole team," he said. "We’ve been struggling with the balance all day. I think we can quote it as one of our worst Fridays since we started Haas F1 Team.

"Obviously, we’ve had some issues today," he summed up. "We have to try to get better for tomorrow. It’s not over yet, but we’ve certainly not made our lives easy."

The gloomy mood at Haas had also got the better of team principal Guenther Steiner.

"A miserable day today," he said. "It must be our worst day since we started here a year-and-a-half ago. I don’t know where to start with all that happened.

"We crashed two cars in FP1. One was pretty heavily damaged, but thanks to the hard work of the guys we at least got Kevin out so he could do a few laps.

"Romain’s car was less damaged and he could get out, but we just struggled to find a balance. It’s going from oversteer to understeer and we haven’t found out why yet

"Hopefully, tomorrow we know more and do better and get back to our normal selves."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.