The challenges in getting a new driver up to speed in F1

In times gone by when there were many more teams on the grid than today, it was fairly common to see numerous changes to the driver line-up at the final few races of a Formula 1 season as enterprising team owners completed short-term deals to keep their outfits on the grid. The penultimate race of the tumultuous 1994 season, at Suzuka, featured no less than five changes - one of them, JJ Lehto rejoining Sauber after a confidence-jarring year with Benetton, in a car I engineered - while three drivers made their debuts at the same race one year before, including a confident Ulsterman who would earn himself a punch from Ayrton Senna...

Of course, the circumstances around last weekend's changes for the Sakhir GP were anything but the norm. Pietro Fittipaldi, grandson of Emerson, was replacing the injured Romain Grosjean at Haas, while Jack Aitken was driving the Williams normally campaigned by Mercedes junior George Russell, who had been given the golden opportunity of driving Lewis Hamilton's W11 with the world champion sidelined by a positive test for COVID-19.