Giovinazzi facing second year without racing programme

Ferrari Formula 1 youngster Antonio Giovinazzi is facing a second straight season without a full-time racing programme as he focuses on his duties supporting the Italian team in 2018.

2016 GP2 runner-up Giovinazzi linked up with Ferrari ahead of the 2017 season, and was drafted in by Sauber to make his surprise F1 debut in Australia in place of the injured Pascal Wehrlein.

Giovinazzi returned to his reserve role after two races when Wehrlein was declared fit, but would get further F1 run-outs during a test for Ferrari in Bahrain, as well as enjoying string of practice appearances with Haas towards the end of the year.

Despite being heavily linked with a full-time F1 seat at Sauber for 2018, Giovinazzi lost out in the race to Marcus Ericsson, but was named as the Ferrari customer team's reserve driver for next year - a role he says he is fully focused on.

"At the moment, I will still be the third driver for Scuderia Ferrari, so I have a lot of jobs back at Maranello in the simulator, going to every race weekend and staying there with Ferrari," Giovinazzi told Crash.net.

"Then we will see. Also last year I had no expectation to make my first ever F1 grand prix, and then it happened in Melbourne.

"It's still a long year, but we’ll see what happens."

While Giovinazzi will be on standby for both Ferrari and Sauber this season, the Italian youngster is facing a second year without a full-time racing programme, with his F1 starts in Australia and China being his only races since his final GP2 appearance at the end of 2016.

Asked if he expected to balance his Ferrari duties with a programme in another series this year, Giovinazzi remained unsure.

"We don’t know yet. We need to see how it is with Ferrari," he said.

"But for now I’m focused just on the job with Ferrari, and then we’ll see."