Delayed Haas team granted extra evening running in Bahrain

The Haas F1 team has been granted additional track time on each of this week's three days of testing in Bahrain to compensate for the outfit missing Thursday morning's session due to a freight delay.

The US outfit's cargo arrived a day late in Bahrain after the aircraft that was scheduled to transport the team's equipment was grounded by a technical issue.

Haas' freight eventually made it to Sakhir but the delay has led to a belated start for the team which subsequently missed Thursday morning's opening session. However, Haas reserve Pietro Fittipaldi was up and running when the afternoon segment kicked off.

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The FIA has recognized a case of force majeure for Haas which had no control of its cargo's delay.

But Haas was hoping to play catch-up on Sunday with four hours of extra running, the governing body has only given permission for the team to run later into the evening across the three days of testing.

"We were denied the testing on Sunday," explained team boss Guenther Steiner. "Nine minutes before we went out.

"We can make up four hours of testing but we need to make it up at the end of the day. But we can’t run on Sunday.

"We can run an hour later, four hours – in total, over the three days, four hours in the evening."

It's been a busy week for Haas, with the team terminating its contract with title sponsor Uralkali and its driver Nikita Mazepin.

The US outfit has recalled its former driver Kevin Magnussen to replace the Russian while the team has also shed its red, white and blue colors and reverted to Haas red and black corporate identity.

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