Here is why Haas banned its F1 drivers from copying Max Verstappen’s GT3 take a look at

4-time world champion Max Verstappen provoked rampant intrigue within the motorsport neighborhood final weekend when he drove a Ferrari – of all issues – in a take a look at on the Nurburgring Norschleife. Now, Haas workforce boss Ayao Komatsu has put his foot down and says his workforce’s driver’s received’t be following the Purple Bull racer’s instance.

Verstappen took benefit of the hole between the F1 Miami GP and this weekend’s Emilia-Romagna GP to have some enjoyable beneath the pseudonym “Franz Hermann.” Beneath the guise, he examined a Ferrari 296 GT3 on the Nurburgring, elevating a couple of eyebrows within the course of.

The Ferrari 296 GT3 was run by Emil Frey Racing, which operates Verstappen’s personal workforce within the GT World Problem, and was bedecked in Verstappen’s livery, so it didn’t stay secret for lengthy. However the clandestine nature of the preliminary entry, and rumours that Verstappen broke the lap document, however created greater than a small ripple of curiosity.

However whereas it’s believed to be enshrined in Verstappen’s contract that he’s allowed such hobbies, different drivers are much less lucky.

“No,” was Haas workforce principal Ayao Komatsu’s unequivocal response when requested if he would allow Oliver Bearman or Esteban Ocon to comply with go well with.

“Step-by-step,” Komatsu informed Motorsport.com forward of the Imola GP. “Max is a a number of world champion, proper? Oli is a rookie.

“Even Esteban, he is bought nonetheless tons to show. He is centered. What’s the advantage of them racing in one other race?

“I feel they’re fairly fortunate that they are driving an F1 automotive for his or her job. That is a number of enjoyable, I feel.

“Truthfully, it’s busy sufficient, actually. You realize, in between these 24 races – it is not like we’ve not bought sufficient races, proper? – they should take care of their bodily situation, psychological situation.

“In between, they need to work with engineers, simulators. It is not like they’re sitting at residence desirous about what to do. So, I feel they have lots on their fingers.”

Participating in extracurricular racing additionally has its dangers. As Verstappen identified throughout his take a look at, he had the advantage of a whole bunch of hours of sim racing in his spare time, so had the mandatory expertise of managing the presence of slower vehicles and realizing the place to go. And he was in the appropriate automotive.

“It is positively extra harmful for me to sit down in a slower automotive and be depending on the sooner vehicles,” Verstappen stated throughout his Thursday media session at Imola.

Whereas F1 drivers in earlier many years raced each weekend, usually in a broad number of classes – Jim Clark was as fluent and spectacular in a Lotus Cortina as he was in a Lotus grand prix automotive – the character of motor racing has modified.

Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Fernando Alonso, Andretti Autosport Honda

Photograph by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Pictures

The F1 calendar has expanded, its drivers have grow to be extra skilled and so they now not want the cash that, say, sportscar racing would carry. What’s extra, contracts and branding considerations militate towards driving vehicles from completely different producers.

Within the fashionable period, some drivers have been in a position to negotiate racing in different classes into their contracts, however the destiny of Robert Kubica looms giant. Among the many most promising drivers of his technology, he was hurling a Skoda Fabia Tremendous 2000 automotive across the hills of Liguria within the 2011 Ronde di Andora rally when he speared off the highway and a guardrail penetrated the cabin, partially severing his proper hand.

Fernando Alonso had sufficient contractual weight for McLaren to excuse him from the 2017 Monaco GP so he might contest the Indy 500, however even that might most likely not have come to go had Bernie Ecclestone nonetheless been pulling F1’s strings on the time.

In 2015, the Canadian Grand Prix didn’t conflict with the Le Mans 24 Hours and Nico Hulkenberg took benefit of this to race for Porsche within the legendary enduro. Since he raced with Power India on the time, there have been no producer clashes to behave as obstacles.

However when Hulkenberg returned to the F1 paddock in Austria, extensively feted as a Le Mans winner, there have been ructions on the prime. Ecclestone discovered all the eye directed in the direction of the world of sportscars and the then-new World Endurance Championship commercially vexatious and bothersome.

As such, Hulkenberg was duly summoned to the ‘Bernie Bus’, instructed to place a sock in it, and emerged from the smoked-glass environs of Ecclestone’s cloister with quite much less of a spring in his step.

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