Guenther Steiner has acknowledged that young drivers have a challenging task when they enter Formula 1. He has also admitted his team failed Mick Schumacher on several occasions but overall did a good job.
For the 2023 F1 campaign the Haas team manager has chosen to complete his driver lineup with Nico Hulkenberg in the place of Mick Schumacher.
Based on the latter’s expertise, it was decided that the squad needed such a contribution right now to help the team get back to being a consistent midfield contender.
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Steiner remarked that Schumacher lacked that experience because he had only competed in two F1 seasons, both with Haas.
“In racing, two years is pretty good time, but there is nothing before,” Steiner remarked on the young German’s chance to advance and mature at the pinnacle of the sport.
“He jumped straight from F2 to F1, the competition, because there is no testing.”
All new drivers now have to overcome the difficulty of not having access to testing facilities and the chance to operate a current-spec vehicle outside of a race weekend.
In contrast to those who have been racing for a while, it puts them at a disadvantage, as shown by Steiner’s decision to replace Mick Schumacher with Nico Hulkenberg.
“As you can see, we reverted back to get the experience of a driver which was in a car for three years, or not full-time, call it like this in a car,” he explained.
“The young drivers, he cannot really evaluate, or you take big risks. McLaren takes on [Oscar] Piastri, but in the end nobody knows how good he will be in an F1 car,” he added.
“He was very good in F3 and F2 but that doesn’t mean [anything]. It’s still a big step to F1.
“So obviously, I think it is a little bit of a, I wouldn’t say a problem is one of these things, you know how much risk you want to take to get in the car.”
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The Haas team principal further asserted that although occasionally failed to uphold Schumacher throughout his time with Haas, he and his squad performed an excellent job overall.
“I think we did a good job in that one. I always said we treat every driver fair and we do the best we can,” Steiner remarked.
“Sometimes it wasn’t good enough from the team. I’m fully standing behind that, you know, that it was not him not performing.
“Sometimes we had issues, when we didn’t, we are not good enough. But we need to fix that one.
“But I think we always gave him the best we could and we’re always fair. Where equality with the drivers last year [was complained about], this year, there was always no issue with that one.”
