There are only two seats remaining unconfirmed for a complete 2023 line-up – one at Williams, and one at Haas.
At Williams it is known that Nicholas Latifi will be parting ways with the team, however, at Haas it is yet to be confirmed whether Mick Schumacher will keep his seat, or if the American team will look elsewhere.
Plenty of speculation is in the air around Haas with Gene Haas speaking at a recent NASCAR event, claiming that Schumacher needs to first start scoring more points, but most importantly stop crashing the car, if he wants to keep his seat for next year.
“He costs a fortune,” he told reporters in Las Vegas when discussing Schumacher’s crashes this season.
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One of the rumoured candidates for the seat, Antonio Giovinazzi, drove the Haas in FP1 in Austin this Friday, with the Ferrari driver taking part in the mandatory young driver session that all teams must partake in each season.
The Italian, formerly of Alfa Romeo, must not have heard the team owner’s comments, crashing the car in the practice session, costing the team even more in repairs.
“We can’t keep making these little mistakes that hold us back over and over again in terms of development of the team,
“Then we’ll never make any progress,” Haas said when speaking about the Giovinazzi crash.
Whilst it seems the seat is in Schumacher’s hands, with a few good results towards the end of the season being enough to grant him another year in the car, his uncle and former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher was livid at Steiner’s call for consistency.
“I don’t know if he means the drivers or the team,” he told Sky Deutschland.
“He should maybe listen to his own interviews, then he would notice it too, because the team itself, apart from him [Steiner] and his boss, is doing a decent job,
“Both drivers at the team now are doing a good job and I think Haas would do well to stick with them.
“And if you’re so critical of the drivers, maybe use some self criticism as well.
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“This is Formula 1, not Netflix,” he concluded.
Amidst Ralf’s comments, there is little sign of friction in the Haas camp, with Mick even walking around the paddock on Friday with his boss’ face on his t-shirt, a jovial nod to Steiner’s fan favourite reputation from Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’.
With Schumacher needing to impress to keep his seat, there would surely be no place better to score some points, and send a message to his boss, than Haas’ home Grand Prix in Austin this Sunday.