Nikita Mazepin says💃 he “almost crashed” when running behind Antonio G🌄iovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo during day two of Formula 1 pre-season testing in Bahrain.

Mazepin completed 76 laps in the mor🍃ning session of day two at the Bahrain International Circuit, cla𓂃ssifying 14th fastest overall.

After being ov♒ertaken by Giovinazzi into Turn 1, the Russian ducked out🌼 from behind the Alfa Romeo on the exit of Turn 3 and almost lost control of his car in the process.

Speaking after the morning session, Mazepin revealed he wanted to follow another F1 car closely to see how mu💖ch downforce is lost when running behind another driver.

“It is a known topic that F1 cars have a lot of downforce and lose a lot of downforce when they follow other cars,” Mazepin said. “With such limited running and a lot of cars being most likely in front of me at the start of the race in Bahrain, I wanted to experience the amount of downforce that I would 𒀰lose.

“I did get to experience that. I almost crashed because the wind snap was ꦍhuge. It was a bit of a worrying moment but good to try.”

Explaining the situation with Giovinazzi, he said: “I was just following. Antonio was on a lower fuel run and he was not doing consecut⛄ive laps. And I was going for the whole race distance and my pace was slower.

“He overtook me and I wanted t🅰o stay behind and learn 🧔my way through.”

Haas completed the most laps of a♌ny team on day two in 🍒Bahrain, 162 laps in total.

Mazepin reiterated Haas' desire to get as many laps on the board as possible because of𒁏 his and teammate Mick Schumacher's lack of F1 experience an༺d testing being limited to just three days.

“We are in the situation that we are in, and regardless of the teams plans the driver’s job i๊s to maximise it, and my goal is to go as forwar💞d as I can possibly go,” Mazepin added.

“It was important to make a lot of laps because we are very limited with the amount of running we are going to g✤et this year so the more laps I do the more familiar I am with the car and competing with guys who have raced over 10 years in F1.

“That is a big advantage that I will gain by completing 70 laps that I’ve done today. In regards to know development, I tꦓhink we have 🍃a good foundation with the car to build and hopefully that foundation will help us go even further in development in 2022.”