Pietro Fittipaldi, Circuit de Catalunya, 2022

Pietro Fittipaldi will have “first call” on Mazepin’s seat – Steiner

2022 F1 season

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Pietro Fittipaldi is first in line to replace Nikita Mazepin if he is unable to continue driving for Haas.

Team principal Guenther Steiner confirmed the team’s reserve driver will have the “first call” on the seat. Steiner admitted earlier today that Mazepin’s future at the team is unsure as Haas may be about to split from title sponsor Uralkali.

Haas removed Uralkali’s logos and Russian colour scheme from their cars ahead of today’s third day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine yesterday.

Steiner said the team will decide next week on the future of the title sponsorship deal. The decision will also affect Mazepin’s future, as he is linked to the funding brought by the deal via his father, Uralkali chief Dmitry Mazepin.

The team already has a contingency plan in place if Mazepin does not continue. “If Nikita couldn’t drive, for one or another reason, the first call will go to Pietro,” Steiner told Bob Varsha. “Obviously he’s with us for a few years. And then we will see what we would do next.”

Fittipaldi made his grand prix debut for Haas in 2020, when he drive two races as a substitute for Romain Grosjean when he was injured in a fiery crash at the Bahrain Grand Prix. He remains the team’s reserve driver.

“Pietro is always around with us for this reason,” said Steiner. “In the last years we needed a reserve driver with having Covid around. He’s always around, he knows the team, he knows the car. To jump in from one day to the other there is nobody better than Pietro around at the moment.”

Mazepin drove the team’s car this morning, following its livery change, but was only able to cover nine laps due to technical problems.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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20 comments on “Pietro Fittipaldi will have “first call” on Mazepin’s seat – Steiner”

  1. Unsurprisingly.

  2. Looking at his Racing Record, it doesn’t look like young Fitipaldi would be a step up from Mazepin

    Doesn’t look great.

    1. he was only 3 tenths off Magnussen in his second F1 Gp at Abu Dhabi 2020.
      The kid might be actually good.

    2. Looks like the gene pool of this family has diminished more than the Andretti’s. I wish these F1 drivers in name only like this guy and Schumacher would become a thing of the past.

      1. Hill and Villeneuve didn’t do their family names much harm….

        On the other hand, there was Senna

      2. Not sure if you’ve heard of him, but Jos Verstappen’s son can drive OK.

  3. So they will shift from Putin money to Bolsonaro money. Okidokie!

    1. As a brazilian i can confirm that there is no governament money involved with Fittipaldi ….. at least there is that

      His family name helps a lot to find sponsorship for him

  4. Interesting that Wolf prefers this kind of unambitious competition to Andretti entering the sport

  5. By ‘first call’, I assume that means ‘first opportunity to squeeze his sponsors for $15m’ (or however much a Haas seat costs these days).

    Fittipaldi doesn’t look a particularly exciting prospect, but he’s probably no worse than any of the realistic, well-funded alternatives.

  6. So good to see teams branching out with their personnel rather than just going for monied offspring of former racing drivers!

    Who’s next: Brian Prost? Steve Senna? Jake Berger? Kev Mansell?

    1. You left out Marco Andretti, Sebastian Montoya, Eduardo Barrichello…

  7. At least they are choosing the “reserve driver” It wasn’t a long time ago that “reserve driver” was surpassed by a test driver from the 90s

  8. Well, there might be a world war going on by the first race.

    But name wise well done. Two ancestors of famous racing oligarchs.

    It seems also the car is super slow.

  9. I would love love love if Ikea picked up the phone to Gene Haas. “want to run yellow and blue??”

    #UKRAINE

  10. Pietro Fittipaldi is first in line to replace Nikita Mazepin if he is unable to continue driving for Haas.

    My understanding is the 2021 F2 season champion is Oscar Piastri, so maybe he should be first in line for the vacant seat.

    1. Is that written in contract? Because Fittipaldi (however uninspiring a choice) does have one with Haas.

    2. So what part of “Reserve driver” isn’t totally clear?

  11. How does Fittipaldi even have a super license looking at his results? FIA needs to wake up and increase the standards.

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