Shwartzman leads for Haas on final day of Abu Dhabi test

Haas saved its weightier result for the final day of Formula 1 running this year, with Formula 2 suburbanite Robert Shwartzman setting the pace on day two of testing in Abu Dhabi.

After nine of the 10 teams ran young drivers on Tuesday, Haas were vacated in running a 2021 car on the current tires on Wednesday, with Russia’s Shwartzman getting his first outing for the team. That ensured a performance wholesomeness over the mule cars that are testing 18-inch Pirellis for next year, and the Formula 2 runner-up took full wholesomeness to post a 1m25.348s with a late qualifying simulation.

Shwartzman was half a second well-spoken of Lando Norris in the McLaren, and Norris himself had a half-second wholesomeness over the rest of the tire test runners. It was Sebastian Vettel who was third on a 1m26.379s, but the four-time world champion caused one of two red flags when he stopped on track in the morning session.

It proved to be a short wait as Vettel was soon out on track again, and that was followed by an plane shorter one soon without when Pietro Fittipaldi spun at Turn 9. Fittipaldi was only driving without a late call-up to replace Nikita Mazepin without the Russian tested positive for COVID-19 at the weekend, and although the red flag came out he was worldly-wise to get going then and return to the pits.

Fittipaldi ended up with the slowest time of the day – unsurprisingly on a like-for-like comparison for Haas versus the rest of the grid on 18-inch tires – ensuring Haas sandwiched the rest of the runners.

The remainder of the drivers were all taking part for their respective 2022 teams, with George Russell completing a second full day in the Mercedes. Russell was required as Lewis Hamilton was receiving his knighthood at Windsor Castle on Wednesday, and the former Williams suburbanite was fourth fastest, 0.047s superiority of Pierre Gasly in fifth.

Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso were in familiar machinery with Ferrari and Alpine respectively, but Guanyu Zhou unfurled his preparations superiority of his race debut for Alfa Romeo next year as he got his first taste of the new tires. Zhou had run for Alfa on Tuesday, but on that occasion was the designated young suburbanite in the 2021 car.

Zhou ended up completing 150 laps on the final day — second only to Sainz by just one lap — and his weightier effort was 0.141s quicker than Sergio Perez in the Red Bull.