Here’s why Haas banned its F1 drivers from c...

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 test at the Nurburgring Norschleife. Now, Haas staff boss Ayao Komatsu has put his foot down and says his staff’s driver’s gained’t be following the Crimson 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 fun under the pseudonym “Franz Hermann.” Beneath the guise, he examined a Ferrari 296 GT3 on the Nurburgring, elevating a number of eyebrows within the course of.

The Ferrari 296 GT3 was run by Emil Frey Racing, which operates Verstappen’s personal staff 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 record, 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 staff principal Ayao Komatsu’s unequivocal response when requested if he would allow Oliver Bearman or Esteban Ocon to comply with swimsuit.

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

“Even Esteban, he is received nonetheless tons to show. He is targeted. What’s the good thing about them racing in one other race?

“I feel they’re fairly fortunate that they are driving an F1 automobile for his or her job. That is numerous enjoyable, I feel.

“Actually, it’s busy sufficient, actually. You understand, in between these 24 races – it isn’t like we have not received sufficient races, proper? – they should take care of their bodily situation, psychological situation.

“In between, they need to work with engineers, simulators. It isn’t like they’re sitting at residence interested by 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 check, he had the good thing about tons of of hours of sim racing in his spare time, so had the required expertise of managing the presence of slower vehicles and understanding the place to go. And he was in the suitable automobile.

“It is positively extra harmful for me to take a seat in a slower automobile and be depending on the quicker vehicles,” Verstappen mentioned throughout his Thursday media session at Imola.

Whereas F1 drivers in earlier many years raced each weekend, typically 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 automobile – 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 develop into extra skilled and so they not want the cash that, say, sportscar racing would deliver. What’s extra, contracts and branding considerations militate in opposition to driving vehicles from totally different producers.

Within the trendy period, some drivers have been in a position to negotiate racing in different classes into their contracts, however the destiny of Robert Kubica looms massive. Among the many most promising drivers of his era, he was hurling a Skoda Fabia Tremendous 2000 automobile 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 Drive India on the time, there have been no producer clashes to behave as obstacles.

However when Hulkenberg returned to the F1 paddock in Austria, broadly feted as a Le Mans winner, there have been ructions on the prime. Ecclestone discovered all the eye directed in 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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