Haas faced a difficult few days after its material remained stationary in the UK, due to a delay in the plane responsible for transporting the material at Istanbul airport.
Although the material was finally loaded on Tuesday and arrived in the Middle East last night, the American team finds itself with limited time to finalize preparations for this week’s final pre-season test. While other teams began preparing for their staging on Monday, Haas is currently racing against the clock to get out on the first day of action.
The team confirmed this Wednesday that the material was finally in Bahrain, but calculated that it would not be ready for the morning session on Thursday.
“I can confirm that our cargo arrived late last night at the Bahrain loop,” a Haas spokesman said. “This delay will affect our program, but we will be in the second session on Thursday afternoon with Pietro Fittipaldi driving the VF-22. I have no other updates at this time,” they say on their social networks.
This delay caps off a particularly difficult fortnight for Haas, who have just parted ways with Nikita Mazepin and their title sponsor Uralkali. Under cover of this situation, Haas felt that he could not continue with the great support he had from the sponsor of the country.
As it is, he has yet to confirm his plans on who will replace Mazepin for the 2022 season, and has so far only announced that reserve driver Fittipaldi will star in this week’s test.
Antonio Giovinazzi and Nico Hulkenberg have been widely linked with the spot, while reports from Denmark have suggested that Kevin Magnussen could even be set for a surprise return after opening talks with the team.
Haas owner Gene Haas said that while the loss of Uralkali will affect the team’s funding, the future of the team was not in doubt as it was well supported.
“We’re fine. We’re fine. We’d like more money, of course, but we’re fine,” he told the AP last week. “This just puts things a little bit more against us,” he concluded.
