Hinchcliffe's Haas F1 test that left IndyCar race winner 'speechless'

The American driver took part in a Pirelli test at Mugello in late September, his first ever outing in a Formula One car.

Hinchcliffe explained that making his actual outing a reality proved difficult due to the exclusivity behind the chance of driving F1 machinery. However, Haas stepped up.

He wrote in his Formula 1 column: "That’s why when I got a call from Stuart Morrison, Head of Communications for the Haas F1 team, asking if I’d like to come drive their VF-23 for a few laps, I thought maybe they’d called the wrong number. Luckily for me, the number was correct."

The job was just beginning for the former IndyCar racer, as a 42-page long manual containing the operational aspects of the VF-23 was handed to him for profound study.

Sharing the driving duties with Romain Grosjean, who had not driven a F1 car after his fiery 2020 crash in Bahrain, Hinchcliffe refrained from allowing the mixed conditions at the track from dampening his spirit.

He added: "Mother Nature was not cooperating and rain was ever present in the morning during Romain’s running. But the weather didn’t dampen either the emotional impact of his return, nor the excitement I had for my first run in the car."

For the American driver it was "a childhood dream being realised," to hear the Ferrari power unit come on and to then pull out of the Haas garage.

After admitting to taking some advice from the Haas drivers Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon, he took on his first meters on a wet Mugello where the machine's stopping power 'blew him away.'

His outing in the dry, though, Hinchcliffe says it's difficult to "put into words."

The technical intricacies of the car, Hinchcliffe highlights as "more fun than I expected it to be," though he did acknowledge that this aspect adds to the vast complexities that is involved in being a top level F1 driver.

He said: "At the end of the day, having that experience has raised my already high admiration for these cars and the people who race them.

"While I can’t thank Haas and F1TV enough for the opportunity, I had to remind them that the cars will be so different in 2026 that we might just have to do it again next year!," Hinchcliffe concluded.

GPblog was able to sit down for an interview with the F1TV presenter to discuss several F1-related topics, like for instance, why he's a Max Verstappen fan, Lewis Hamilton's recent woeful stint at Ferrari, or Mercedes incumbent rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli's form at the German team.

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