Haas wants consistency rather than speed from Ilott in FP1

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner does not want Callum Ilott to play the hero in Friday's FP1 session at the Nürburgring, expecting instead consistency and feedback from the F1 rookie.

Ferrari junior Ilott will enjoy his first official F1 outing this week, taking over Romain Grosjean's seat with Haas in the first practice session for the Eifel Grand Prix.

The 21-year-old will share the track with fellow Ferrari Driver Academy member Mick Schumacher who will be driving for Alfa Romeo, but with inclement weather forecasted for Friday, both young chargers will be encouraged by their respective teams to proceed with caution.

• Read also: Ferrari stages F1 test for Schumacher, Ilott and Shwartzman

"The programme will be the same as it would be for one of our regular drivers," said Steiner.

"Maybe we tell him (Ilott) to be a little bit more careful when he goes out there as at the moment rain is predicted.

"Otherwise, we just always try and work through our FP1 program and do the best we can knowing that for a driver being in his first weekend session in a Formula 1 car – there’s a lot of pressure, a lot of unknowns."

To ease the pressure on its young hopeful, Haas has advised Ilott to focus on driving consistently and returning some useful feedback to the team's engineers rather than on his outright speed.

"We don’t look too much at the time, we’re looking at his consistency and the feedback he can bring to the team," added Steiner.

"That’s where we judge a driver, not on outright pace, because 90 minutes is not a long time to be sitting in a car like a Formula 1 car.

"We’ll just try to manage that we get feedback and that he gets a good experience with us."

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