Haas rejected Ferrari’s driver request

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has said that the American outfit have rejected Ferrari’s advances to bring either Antonio Giovinazzi or Charles Leclerc to the team for 2018.

Ferrari are eager for their young drivers to gain Formula 1 experience at one of their customer teams, but only Sauber is a viable destination for both as Haas opted to stay put with Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean.

“We work very closely with Ferrari together on things but they respect our decisions,” said Steiner to RACER.

“We are very open with them about what we are doing because that’s the only way the partnership works – there is no playing games.

“We know we have got these two drivers and sometimes you need to look after the long term, because next year is short term. Sure, they asked us if we can do something, and we said no. It’s fine.

“We make our plans and try to plan as well as possible. When we signed these drivers we had to make the plans together. We need to be consistent.

不过,施泰纳说,哈斯继续to remain open to change in future but, at the moment, the priority is to build a solid foundation.

He added: “I wouldn’t say we would confuse ourselves without help from outside but everything is new for us and while consistency sometimes goes against you – sometimes fresh blood helps you do better – we need to build a base.

For that, consistency is important. I think we work with both of our drivers very well so at the moment for us there is nothing to be changed.”