Haas offers F1 test to McLaren's F2 champion

Haas has handed McLaren reserve and reigning Formula 2 champion Leonardo Fornaroli a two-day test in its 2025 Formula 1 car. 

Fornaroli made his FP1 debut with McLaren at Barcelona, impressing the team and finishing as the fastest of the seven drivers who subbed in for first practice. He'd already conducted Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) running with McLaren at Barcelona, Silverstone and Austin.

Haas says it has "offered the opportunity" of a two-day test in its 2025 car at Jerez with Haas reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa also in attendance, as part of its use of TPC running to "test and appraise drivers".

Haas started its TPC programme last year with the help of technical partner Toyota, with drivers including ex-F1 drivers Kamui Kobayashi and Kazuki Nakajima, and Super Formula champions Sho Tsuboi and Ritomo Miyata appearing so far. Haas also used the programme to give Romain Grosjean his farewell F1 test.

Haas is one of only two teams (along with Alpine) not to tick off one of its four mandatory rookie practice outings this season.

Fornaroli won back to back F3 and F2 titles across 2024 and 2025 then joined McLaren as a reserve driver this year.

The 21-year-old Italian drew praise from McLaren team boss Andrea Stella after his Barcelona FP1 debut, where his fastest time was 0.650s off Oscar Piastri. 

"It is a very deserved opportunity. We have worked with Leonardo for some months now. We have appreciated massively his attitude as a person and as a driver," Stella explained.

"He is actually a very interesting character; he looks timid, but by far is the most proactive driver in asking the engineers. He goes around with his notebook, takes several notes, and as soon as he has an idea, he shares it. So it's a very interesting character. 

"Then when he gets in a car, be it a simulator, be it in the TPC testing car, or here in a free practice one session, he is fast. 

"We gave Leonardo some duties in the first part of his FP1 session, because he needed to do some work for us on the rakes - it is actually the rakes to try and understand the behaviour of the [new] front wing. It was difficult, because he needed to go in constant speed while everyone else was at normal speed.

"He did it with a great level of professionalism and a great level of precision in terms of these procedures, because there is a lot of work on the steering wheel to achieve the right speed and stay away from traffic.

"Then when we gave him a couple of sets [of tyres], one used, one new, he was fast. And I have to say that in the laptime he did, you should take away two tenths of a second, because he loses two tenths of a second down the straight, because with this power unit you need to get some familiarity.

"As soon as you have to manage some traffic, the state of charge of the battery is not maximum, and you are going to be punished down the straight. 

"So I am very happy with the attitude, the speed, the consistency.

"Leonardo is certainly an asset for Formula 1 in the future."