Mazepin 'almost crashed' while following Giovinazzi

Haas' Nikita Mazepin says he nearly lost it while running in the wake of Antonio Giovinazzi's Alfa Romeo as he sought to experiment how much downforce is lost when running behind another car.

Mazepin was in action on Saturday morning as Haas continued to split its day between the Russian and Mick Schumacher.

The rookie enjoyed a solid morning, clocking in with the seventh best time and 76 laps on the board, the most of the ten drivers running in the opening segment of the day.

But Mazepin suffered a self-inflicted moment on the exit of Turn 3 as he was running right behind Giovinazzi.

"It's a known topic that Formula 1 cars have a lot of downforce and do lose a lot of downforce following other cars," Mazepin explained as he described the hair-raising experience.

"With such limited running and obviously a lot of cars being most likely in front of me at the start of the race in Bahrain, I wanted to experience the amount of downforce that I will lose.

"I did get to experience that. I almost crashed, to be honest, because the wind snap was huge. It was a bit of a worrying moment, but good to try.

"Antonio was on a lower fuel run, and was doing, you know, not consecutive laps, when I was going through the whole race distance, and my pace was slower. So he overtook me.

"I wanted to stay behind and learn my way through."

Mazepin admitted that there was "a very big difference" between the downforce levels in F2 and those of an F1 car, a fact that did not surprise the 21-year-old.

"Currently, I think there's a very big difference, but it's not a surprise to me," Mazepin said.

"F2 does have a lot of downforce as well. It's a heavier car. So there are small gains here and there. But it's not the new thing to me, because races are more difficult."

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