Kevin Magnussen will have the privilege of breaking in Haas’ 2017 contender when pre-season gets underway on February 27 in Barcelona.
The Dane will run for the first two days in the car before team mate Romain Grosjean takes over for the last two days of the first pre-season stint, on March 1 and 2.
Magnussen and Grosjean will then alternate from March 7 to 10 for the second segment of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya, with Haas’ new recruit once again running first.
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Grosjean on the other hand has been entrusted on running on the staged wet weather day on March 10, when teams will run full wets in the morning and intermediates in the afternoon.
The Frenchman was handed the duty by team manager Guenther Steiner thanks to his impressive performance in last year’s rain-soaked Brazilian GP!
“When I was told by Guenther that I was going to be doing the wet day, he said, ‘Obviously looking at your Brazil performance we need to put you on the wets.’ I was like, ‘Thank you, Guenther. That’s very kind of you,’ ” Grosjean joked.
“On the serious side though, I think it’s going to be really important to analyze and see how the wet tires are going to work. Pirelli’s been doing quite a lot of work on them.”
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While the dedicated ‘rain day’ was of more importance to Pirelli than the teams, Steiner still underlined its purpose and usefulness.
“It’s more for the tire supplier, Pirelli, to see what the tire is doing in the wet but, for sure, it will help the driver if he drives on the wet surface when we have a wet race,” said the Haas boss.
“I think the main effort is on developing the tire, or to see if it is acceptable. By having a wider tire this year – quite a bit wider – water is going to be a bigger issue than last year, and Pirelli just wants to gain as much experience as possible before we actually have a wet race.”
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