Antonio Giovinazzi doubts his crash in practice at the Circuit of the Americas will harm his chances of earning a comeback to Formula 1 next year.
He lost his seat in F1 at the end of last season after three years at Alfa Romeo. He returned to drive for Haas for the second time this year in practice for the United States Grand Prix, but spun into a barrier at turn six on his fifth lap.Haas is considering potential replacements for Mick Schumacher in its line-up for next year. Team owner Gene Haas said the second-year driver had crashed too many times this year.
However Giovinazzi is confident teams will put his performance and experience of 62 starts in F1 instead of writing him off on the basis of a crash in practice.
“It’s Formula 1,” he said. “Sometimes you deserve to stay and you don’t take the seat, it’s just like this. It’s racing.
“For sure it doesn’t help but from the other side I showed already in F1 what I can do. I know that it’s not up to this one lap and few corners that will end my career.
“So let’s see what happens. [I’m] just looking forward now and seeing what happens.”
“I did three years in F1,” he added. “If people want me it’s not because of today, it’s in the past what I did and what I will do. So let’s see.”
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Giovinazzi says he wasn’t trying for a fast time when he crashed and suspects a gust of wind may have unsettled the car.
“I wasn’t pushing,” he said, “if I was pushing, it was the last lap of the session, giving all in that lap to surprise everyone, but I wasn’t. It was only my second push, first push with DRS on.
“So I just lost the car. It can be the wind, it can be just a mistake, I don’t know, but it is like this.”
He said Nyck de Vries’ unexpected F1 debut at Monza, which led to him securing an F1 drive with AlphaTauri next year, gives him hope he might be able to make a return to F1.
“Never say never, to be honest, in F1,” said Giovinazzi. “We saw what happened with Nyck in Monza. So let’s see what happens. But so far I don’t know yet what I will do in 2023.”
The former Ferrari Driver Academy member is hoping to win a place in their new World Endurance Championship team if he cannot secure a place in F1 next year. “Of course the priority is to come back here,” he said. “If not, it’s not a secret, I would like to go to Hypercar. So let’s see what happens.”
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2022 United States Grand Prix
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Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
21st October 2022, 22:32
It’s hard to harm your chances, when your chances are zero!
Edvaldo
21st October 2022, 22:45
iI hope it harms and it harms bad. This is a soon to be 30 years old driver who has been around F1 for 5 years and still looks like a rookie. I’d expect the 2017 Gio to bin it with 4 laps, but the 2022 one, with 3 full seasons under his belt, that’s some major incompetence right there. He’s no better than Mick.
Mike43
21st October 2022, 23:16
Somehow I can see Steiner blaming Mick for this crash…
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
21st October 2022, 23:27
Crashing is just what he does. Repeatedly, too, if given a chance.
petebaldwin (@)
21st October 2022, 23:30
Of course it harms his chances! He gets very limited time to impress in an F1 car and he bins it after 4 laps….
It’s one thing to crash on your push-lap in qualifying or during the race but when you’re borrowing someone else’s car to take part in FP1, the primary goal is to bring it back undamaged.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
22nd October 2022, 10:23
I would also say the goal in the race is not to crash. That is where you can get points. Qualifying is where you gain your starting position for the race that gets you points. Practice gets no points – finishing position is totally irrelevant.
You have a point about there being no need to push as hard – but crashing in practice regardless of the driver is not as harmful as doing the same in qualifying or the race.
NS Biker (@rekibsn)
21st October 2022, 23:31
It would make for an interesting video segment to have seen Steiner’s reaction, an opportunity for some colourful metaphors in several different languages.
But look on the bright side, he didn’t burn many tyres and didn’t run up much mileage on the power train.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st October 2022, 23:42
This kinda confirms how he won’t be an improvement over schumacher, since pace is no longer schumacher’s problem, at least compared to magnussen.
Mark Reville (@myrrve)
22nd October 2022, 0:39
At least Gio didn’t destroy the car a la Schumi and was able to drive back to the pits.
SadF1fan
22nd October 2022, 8:09
Car didn’t exit the pits anymore during that session due to broken rear suspension.
I’d almost call it a reality check for Steiner.
baasbas
22nd October 2022, 9:57
@myrrve
Still buggered the clutch so all of FP1 was lost for the team. Less car damage is obviously less bad than a chassis write off. But it was still very damaging
meee
22nd October 2022, 14:13
right…
so gio is still better?! because i don’t really get your point…
mick is young, is learning and he hasn’t much experience (last year is almost non-existent from exp point of view). what’s gio excuse?!
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd October 2022, 6:31
De Vries hasn’t been a full-time F1 driver yet, so referencing his showing in Monza was somewhat pointless.
baasbas
22nd October 2022, 9:55
I wish him well. I hope he finds a nice competitive seat somewhere that is not F1. He has shown enough in F1.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
22nd October 2022, 10:19
So many people are just so against Giovinazzi.
It was a very minor crash, with an unfortunate outcome. Nothing like as bad as Schumacher keeps having, despite being very used to the car.
Giovinazzi was a decent driver last season. Seeing comments like what @proesterchen made shows they didn’t really follow his last season very well, if they are viewing his F1 season anyway. He didn’t crash out in a single race. He was actually pretty consistent, even if he didn’t show much signs of great speed. That admittedly was a rarity. His only DNF was in Abu Dhabi in 2020 when he hit technical issues. Not like Kimi who had a stupid DNF when he hit the back of Giovinazzi on the straight when giovinazzi didn’t break or steer at all.
I still think he’ll be a decent replacement for Schumacher and will do a better job.
baasbas
22nd October 2022, 12:17
@thegianthogweed
I feel you argued perfectly why he shouldn’t be considered. I think it is fair to say he isn’t going to improve and maybe by not being in F1 he even faded, from a not too high skill level anyway*. The debate should be about if Schumacher would and could improve. Not about replacing him with someone who has proven to be mediocre at best*, if only with a lower risk of crashing**.
Schumacher has actually picked up his performance through the season, I think it’s worth the gamble versus certain mediocracy… At least I would consider Ricciardo before I would Giovinazzi.
*I say this from the comfort of my armchair
** Although the crash didn’t destroy the car, it was ultimately session ending damage so still very bad.. The mistake holds more weight because of what could be expected experience wise…
Edvaldo
22nd October 2022, 16:05
I for one can’t understand why Giovinazzi is still in contention for a seat after his stint at Alfa Romeo.
He’s italian and there aren’t many italian drivers around, and that’s it.
He’s not young, he is not fast enough, he is not promising and he crashed a lot during his time with Alfa, often by himself. Why should they bring him back?
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
22nd October 2022, 19:21
I’ll repeat myself again – people seem to remember him as an error prone driver, but he didn’t crash out once in his final season in F1. He even completed every single race excluding the last one when he had a technical issue. That’s a lot of running time which showed to me that his consistency had vastly improved, even if his speed hadn’t much. I still think he was slightly quicker and once in a while (admittedly rare) he was pretty impressive. I myself saw an impovement of him in 2020.
Last year, Schumacher caused the most damage to his car of any driver, and had by far the most money spent on rapairs compared to any other driver on the grid, at the team that was struggling the most for cash. He’s continued his crashing this year. His occational good performance may not be the reason why Haas may keep him, and rather his inconsistency and being very error prone. Mazepin got critisised for crashing a lot, but he in fact didn’t crash as often as Schumacher did, and certainly not causing the same level of damege.
In Schumachers career in F1 so far, he’s probably had close to 10 extreamelly heavy crashes all of which have been expensive to repair, and the vast majority were entirely on him. Haas may not think that his few decent performances do enough to compensate the damage he’s done in costs to do all of his repairs.
All this taken into consideration, although i don’t think Giovinazzi is great, I think he’s a better option for the team than Schumacher. It also depends on how much cash Giovinazzi brings.
t1redmonkey (@t1redmonkey)
22nd October 2022, 19:25
I agree, I’m amazed he’s even being considered, he’s got almost nothing going for him. Surprised he spent as long as he managed to in a seat first time round. There’s no way he’s going to be an upgrade on Mick.
meee
22nd October 2022, 14:18
ahahaha
please tell me how a pretty old driver shown shown how “good” he is , is a replacement for a pretty good and young driver who can (and will if given a seat) improve?!
yeah… sure he crashed a few times… but so did… alonso., lewis, “crashstappen”… just saying…
maybe there a drives better than mick . i really would love to see him in F1 next season, but I can understand someones decision to replace him, but not with gio…