Haas’ Guenther Steiner has ruled out the intention to develop a young driver in Formula 1 as their decision for the 2019 line-up is few weeks away.
Since the American team is only in his third season in F1, therefore Steiner believes it is not in the position to try out fresh talents which could hinder their development process as it penetrates into the midfield battle.
The team has the experience pair of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen who have molded themselves well into the environment as it gains momentum in the championship which has them already in the fight for fourth position in their third year.
“I think they’re [Grosjean and Magnussen] doing pretty good,” said Steiner to the media in Singapore. “I think we are performing pretty good this year, car-wise and driver-wise. We had a few hiccups with one of the drivers in the beginning of the year.
“But lately I think we are performing where we should be performing. Our drivers, at the moment, for us, looking in the future, we are a young team so I don’t think we are ready to develop any young drivers if you want to hear that.
“I hope that we will announce our drivers in the next two to three weeks, so we will let you know when we are ready to announce it,” he added. With their Ferrari connection, speculations rose of them fielding one of their juniors.
However, the Italian manufacturer themselves took in Charles Leclerc for 2019 and beyond, but they still have to find a seat for Antonio Giovinazzi who made his F1 debut in 2017 with Sauber and currently plays the reserve role for Ferrari.
The Italian has Haas as well as Sauber as his options but it more looks like the latter with the former happy with their current line-up of Grosjean and Magnussen. While the chances for the Dane to remain is the highest, but for the Frenchman, it is a 50-50 chance.
Grosjean has had a difficult start to 2018 but fought back well in the second half which could enable him to keep the seat for another year, at least. Considering the newness of the team, it could opt to retain the drivers to keep stability within the outfit.
Outside Gosjean, Magnussen and Giovinazzi, the options keep on increasing as the likes of Esteban Ocon, Stoffel Vandoorne, Marcus Ericsson, Pascal Wehrlein and Sergey Sirotkin are still to be confirmed for a F1 seat.