Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has issued an update regarding Mick Schumacher’s future with the American racing outfit.
Mick, the son of seven-time F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher, is racing with Haas in his debut season in the pinnacle of motorsport, and he has had the better of his fellow rookie team-mate, Nikita Mazepin, so far this campaign.
READ: McLaren Surprised To Be ‘Genuinely’ Very Close To Mercedes & Red Bull
The 2020 Formula 2 Champion was part of the Ferrari Driver Academy (FDA) in his junior career, and the Scuderia facilitated his move to Formula 1, leveraging their technical partnership with Haas to land him a seat.
Commenting on their 2022 driver line-up, Steiner has said that either Schumacher or another Ferrari-backed driver will be in the second seat alongside Mazepin.
“I’m as confident as I can be that Mick will be with us next year,” Steiner wrote in his most recent column for The Race.
“Mick is contracted to Ferrari, and we will be having a Ferrari driver. If it’s not Mick, fine, they have a few other good ones.
“It would be ideal if Mick stays on and I’m pretty sure that that is what will happen,” he added.
Earlier this week, ex-F1 driver Christian Klien slammed Steiner for publicly criticising Schumacher for crashing in FP3 at the Hungaroring.
“He [Schumacher] doesn’t do it on purpose. What do you want with a car that doesn’t work? You have to push, and when you push, it sometimes goes over the limit,” Klien told SpeedWeek.
“That’s the way things happen in the first year. It’s stupid that Haas doesn’t have the budget, it hurts twice over,” he added.