Hinchcliffe to sample Haas VF-23 at Mugello in F1TV feature
James Hinchcliffe is about to trade the commentary box for something with a bit more downforce. The former IndyCar race winner and increasingly familiar F1TV face will climb into a Haas VF-23 next week for his first taste of Formula 1 machinery, PlanetF1.com has confirmed.
The plan is more than a publicity shove down pit lane. Hinchcliffe, 38, will run a proper program at Mugello as part of an F1TV feature, not just a handful of installation laps before the cameras pack up. As he told GPBlog, the intent is to complete “a run plan” and “not just ten laps,” which ought to make the footage—and the data—worth everyone’s time.
Hinchcliffe’s path to this moment has been steady and, frankly, smart. Since stepping back from full-time IndyCar racing, the Canadian has built an effortless broadcast presence in the U.S., first with NBC and now with FOX, before adding F1TV duties to his workload. He brings the racer’s eye and the broadcaster’s timing, and you can feel that duality in this test: part content play, part genuine curiosity about how an F1 car behaves when you’re the one strapping in.
For Haas, it’s another step in a newly energized Testing Previous Cars (TPC) program. The team hasn’t historically been a regular in that space, but its recent tie-up with Toyota has clearly widened the lane—more hands, more resources, more opportunity to run an older car without robbing the race operation of oxygen. After a two-day outing at Fuji in August, the American squad will hand Hinchcliffe a half-day in Tuscany.
TPC tests exist for a few reasons: keeping race drivers sharp after a break, onboarding newcomers, trialing internal processes, and, yes, filming features like this one. The FIA’s rulebook says the car has to be at least two years old, which puts the VF-23 right on the button for a 2025 run.
And Mugello is not the soft option. The place is a rollercoaster—fast, flowing, and punishing if you get your entry speeds wrong. It should showcase what separates an F1 car from almost anything else: the braking bite, the change of direction, and the way the floor and wings lock the thing to the asphalt through Arrabbiata. Hinch has felt big aero before, but this will be a different animal.
There’s a neat symbiosis here. Haas gets to keep its test muscle flexing, F1TV gets a proper on-track piece with a presenter who can articulate the step change in performance, and the audience gets something better than the usual “out-and-in” cameo. If Hinchcliffe’s on-air candor carries over to parc fermé, expect some sharp, colorful debriefs about what shocked him, what translated from his IndyCar playbook, and what definitely didn’t.
It’s also another small stitch in the fabric connecting IndyCar and F1. Drivers on both sides increasingly cross-pollinate in the media and in the simulator world; an on-track sampler like this—especially at a venue as pure as Mugello—adds welcome texture to that story.
No one’s pretending this is a comeback tour or a stealth audition. It’s a TV feature with a proper backbone, and it’ll make good television. But anyone who’s heard Hinchcliffe explain a racing car knows he’ll wring the most out of the time, the car, and the chance to tell viewers exactly how violently an F1 car resets your expectations.
Next week, then: lights on, sensors armed, Mugello humming. A broadcaster with race wins on his CV, a Haas with plenty to give, and a run plan that goes beyond ten laps. Sounds worth tuning in for.
