Ferrari and Haas team principals Mattia Binotto and Guenther Steiner are to sit down and discuss Mick Schumacher’s future.
The German is a member of Ferrari’s academy and joined Haas at the start of the 2021 campaign.
In his first season on the Formula 1 grid, he did everything that he could in extremely poor machinery, dominating team-mate Nikita Mazepin at the back of the field.
It was hoped that, with a much better car at his disposal, he’d really kick on this season, but that hasn’t really been the case.
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While he has delivered some strong performances, he has been outperformed by team-mate Kevin Magnussen more often than not.
He has been out-qualified by the Dane in 11 of the 14 race weekends and has 10 points less to his name.
As a result, it’s far from certain that Schumacher will be retained by Haas for the 2023 campaign, with Daniel Ricciardo and Antonio Giovinazzi both linked with his seat.
His future is made all the more certain by the fact that the driver is set to cut his ties with Ferrari at the end of the current campaign. That would free him up to drive for anyone, but would also mean Haas would have no obligation to give him a seat.
Steiner himself says that no decisions on that front have been made yet.
“We all know that Formula 1 is always about performance,” he told Sky Deutschland.
“That’s why the decision takes time. We don’t want to decide something now that we would regret in two months.”
Just how much of a say Ferrari have in what Steiner and co do is very much unclear given that Schumacher is to leave their management.
However, Binotto says he will sit down and discuss the matter with the Haas boss, suggesting the Scuderia do still have some influence in what happens.
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“We will sit down with Guenther and make a decision,” he said.
Haas not keeping Schumacher wouldn’t guarantee he’s not on the grid next year by any means, with a seat at Alpine available and Esteban Ocon pushing for the German to take it.
However, the French team are reportedly more interested in trying to get Pierre Gasly from AlphaTauri.
It’s possible that Schumacher could take that seat, with Helmut Marko reportedly considering such a move.