The Haas F1 team have come under a lot of fire in the last few races, especially over their drivers. Both Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen have faced plenty of criticism over their on-track antics. They even went as far as to break the cardinal rule in motor-racing: Never Take Out Your Teammate.

That unspoken rule was broken at the British Grand Prix when the two collided, and both their races ended. As a result of both Haas F1 drivers’ misgivings, rumour has it that one of them may be replaced, worst case scenario will see both of them booted out. However, if the 2019 statistics are to be taken into account, Magnussen is on far firmer ground.

To make matters worse for the team, their pace has been horrific and are only ahead of the Williams F1 team in the championship. Now, the likes of reserve driver, Pietro Fittipaldi, could have been an option to get a promotion. Unfortunately for the Brazilian, the chances of that happened is marginal, to say the least.

Guenther Steiner

In fairness though, the Haas F1 team have a solid reason behind not wanting to promote him or any of their junior drivers. Haas F1 boss, Guenther Steiner admitted, “It would need to be more for one year. I think to be a training ground, we don’t want to be that.”

“If you are out two years it is getting very difficult for somebody to take the risk for a team to make a comeback for somebody.”

“There is a small pool to pick from but that is not down to superlicences because at the moment we are talking about experienced drivers, not about newcomers,”

He confessed that there are not many newcomers, so there is not such a big problem at the moment. Instead, that headache will be saved for the coming years. For now though, he is glad that there are enough drivers with plenty of F1 experience.

Pietro Fittipaldi