Mazepin rose from Formula 2 to make his F1 debut with Haas earlier this year, but has only managed to beat teammate Mick Schumacher once in both qualifying and races in the eight events so far this season .
The Russian announced last week that he drove a slightly heavier car than Schumacher, which he said had “quite an impact” and Haas will be giving him a new chassis after the summer break.
Mazepin tested a number of different setups for the Haas VF-21 car during practice at the Red Bull Ring last week and then returned to the base setup for qualifying.
After running for the Austrian Grand Prix on Friday, Mazepin admitted that he found it “quite frustrating” to work with the “extreme” setups that he found difficult to understand.
“With this car, I’d say it’s probably one of the toughest aero packages I’ve ever driven,” said Mazepin.
“And the problem with the setups is that they don’t really make sense to the feedback they’re giving. So I’m pretty lost in that regard.
“In terms of junior formulas, more aero balance means more oversteer, but that definitely doesn’t mean in Formula 1. There are different ways of working the tires during the lap and there are also things that affect the warm-up.
“So I don’t want to be too boring, but it’s pretty extreme and not very easy I would say.”
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Mazepin finished last on Friday at the Red Bull Ring in both FP1 and FP2 and was two tenths of a second behind Schumacher in the afternoon session.
When asked what he could do to get a handle on the issues, Mazepin said he would try to gain a better understanding of the technology involved in order to aid communication with his crew.
“I probably need some engineering class,” said Mazepin.
“I’ve always followed the approach that a driver does his job and the engineers do theirs, but at the moment I think we speak a slightly different language.
“I’m going to study some of the details without jokes to understand how I can advise the team on making the car better.
“Because I think the way it works now isn’t very promising.”
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