Ferrari has decided to make its official reserve driver available to Sauber for the forthcoming China-Bahrain double header.
That is the claim of the authoritative Italian daily La Gazzetta dello Sport, after Antonio Giovinazzi was loaned to Sauber in Australia to replace Pascal Wehrlein.
If Wehrlein continues to be unfit ahead of the next two races, Giovinazzi was considered an obvious choice as his replacement.
But correspondent Andrea Cremonesi insists that Ferrari actually contemplated making the 23-year-old Italian unavailable to the Swiss team.
That is because letting Giovinazzi do more races for Sauber will in fact make him ineligible to do the ’young driver’ tests for Ferrari later this year.
"That Giovinazzi will get another opportunity to drive for Sauber now becomes more real," Cremonesi said, "because Ferrari has decided to ’sacrifice’ being able to use him in the tests after Bahrain."