Mick Schumacher, Nikita Mazepin, Italian GP 2021
© Haas F1-Team / LAT
Gunther Steiner says he has no choice but to oust the former Haas drivers and replace them with rookies Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin for 2021.
That year, the battered American team made headlines for three main reasons – a noticeable lack of pace, the controversial Mazepin, and the escalating disputes on and off the track between the Russian and teammate Schumacher.
After 2020, Haas surprised F1 experts by ousting his veteran roster of Romain Grosjean and Keven Magnussen – but boss Steiner now says he has no choice.
“I had to find ways to keep the team going,” he told Ekstra Bladet newspaper. “Many families depend on it.
“So sometimes you have to make difficult decisions, even if you don’t like them. There was no anger or dissatisfaction – it was just a business decision.
“The alternative was that we wouldn’t be here. People have to understand that. So if we had kept Kevin, but Haas hadn’t survived, Kevin wouldn’t have had a car to drive anyway,” Steiner told the Danish newspaper.
The “solution” he has found is “to take two young drivers,” he says.
In fact, Schumacher is a well-funded Ferrari-attached driver, while the company run by Mazepin’s wealthy father Dmitry is the team’s title sponsor.
Steiner admits it’s “a little harder” to work with rookie drivers, but thinks it would have been a “very bad” experience for Magnussen and Grosjean to drive the uncompetitive 2021 car anyway.
“That was one of the other reasons for the decision,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to have dissatisfied people here.
“At least the new drivers can learn something about Formula 1 and gain experience. If we gave two experienced drivers such a car, we could potentially all pull the team down. Even if you pay them for it.
“I can feel it myself. If 2022 didn’t come, I wouldn’t want to do this season as a job.”
(GMM)
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