Mazepin and Schumacher had clashes on both Saturday and Sunday at the Dutch Grand Prix, which prompted Haas F1 boss Gunther Steiner to plan talks in front of Monza this weekend.
Mazepin was upset after claiming Schumacher broke the team’s agreement by overtaking him on track ahead of Saturday’s final qualifying laps and spoiling his session. Schumacher said he had received permission from the team to overtake Mazepin.
On Sunday it was Schumacher who felt offended after Mazepin made a late defensive move against him on the main straight at the end of the first lap, forcing Schumacher to retreat at the last moment, but he still picked up the front wing damaged.
Schumacher said Mazepin “ruined my race” and thereafter admitted that his relationship with his team-mate had “room for improvement”.
However, Mazepin believed that the Zandvoort incident would have no impact on his relationship with Schumacher – as it had been “precisely since the beginning of the year” – and realized that there had been “some tension”.
“But I really don’t care who I fight,” said Mazepin. “I do it respectfully and I will not give more than I should.”
When asked if there were any problems between him and Schumacher, Mazepin replied: “No problems, but I want to be in the front.”
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Steiner met with Schumacher and Mazepin after the team’s technical briefing after the race to discuss what had happened and said they would “meet outside Monza to see what we need to do to avoid this in the future “.
Haas treated 2021 as a year of transition and decided against any vehicle development in order to fully focus on the new regulations coming in 2022 and to allow its all-rookie line-up to settle in F1.
But Steiner disagreed that it was a good thing that tension was now emerging between his rookie drivers, saying there was “never a good time to go through this”.
“But I’ve been there before, we’ll sort it out,” said Steiner. “And I think the timing is better now than next year, to be honest. We are in a position where we have at least a little more time to sort it out.
“We still have nine races ahead of us, we have to fix that. This is a big job now. And we’ll work hard on it. “
