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Antonio Giovinazzi has admitted he hopes his Haas Friday practice outings are a route back onto the Formula 1 grid in 2023.
The Ferrari reserve driver lost his Alfa Romeo seat for this season as the team switched to an all-new line-up.
Giovinazzi made an ill-fated switch to Formula E with the back-of-the-grid Dragon team and failed to score a point.
But he retained a link to F1 by serving as Ferrari’s reserve driver and his current employer arranged for two FP1 outings with customer team Haas in the second half of the season.
Giovinazzi completed the first of those at the Italian Grand Prix on Friday and is due to drive again at the United States Grand Prix next month.
While he claimed he did “not really” view the Friday outing as a test for next year, Giovinazzi did admit he thinks that performing well may lead to a race seat – with the Italian understood to be on Haas’s shortlist of options to replace Mick Schumacher.
Asked how realistic it was to get back in F1 next year, Giovinazzi said: “I don’t know. It’s not a question that you will ask me.
“I want to be here next year, for sure. It’s not a secret. But it’s not in my hands.
“So, let’s see what we can do. For now I focus on doing a great job in these two sessions. One is over. Then we have another one.”
Giovinazzi lapped three tenths slower than team-mate Kevin Magnussen in FP1 at Monza, on what was his first experience of the new-generation 2022 cars.
He felt that was a “good” comparison and that he could have got closer without encountering traffic on his best lap.
Giovinazzi said: “I know that if I’m doing a good job it’s a possibility there’s a chance there.
“But it’s not in my hands. So let’s see what we can do in Austin.
“I think the team was happy, Guenther [Steiner, team principal] was happy, so I’m happy as well. And then see what we can do.”
Giovinazzi claimed to have no knowledge of when his future could be resolved.
He is also a contender for Ferrari’s new World Endurance Championship programme and its return to the Le Mans 24 Hours.
But he stressed that F1 is his first priority: “It’s not a secret that WEC is a good chance for me. I would like to do it. But let’s focus now to come back here and then see.”
Haas insists Schumacher is not 100% out of a drive for next year and is also believed to be considering Nico Hulkenberg, while outgoing McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo is also theoretically available.
The team appears willing to take its time on who will partner Magnussen, which means Giovinazzi may still be in with a chance of landing the seat by the time he drives in Austin in October.
That will likely allow a fairer assessment of his performance too, given he had only driven 2022 cars on the simulator before Friday at Monza.
Giovinazzi said his first experience of a porpoising F1 car was the biggest thing he noticed driving the Haas, saying the phenomenon exhibited by the ground-effect cars was “quite new”.
“In the first part of the session I was struggling to see the brake reference,” he said.
“But then you need to adapt yourself. I was struggling in the beginning and in the end it was better and I’m sure Austin will be better.
“It’s crazy how much downforce the new car has at high speed. Of course, it’s difficult to see here in Monza because you will run with low downforce.
“So I can’t wait to run in Austin and feel the downforce at high speed.”
