Andretti Team Principal Roger Griffiths has confirmed that Norman Nato has been delivered a "timeline" to turn his performances around, should he want to be offered a new contract for Season 11.
Nato joined Andretti from Nissan on a one-year deal ahead of Season 10 to replace Andre Lotterer, who retired from single-seater racing.
Speed has never been an issue for Nato, although he has struggled to string a consistent run of results together.
The Frenchman has scored just 24 points in the first eight races of the season, despite being in one of the strongest cars on the grid. This is an issue for Andretti, as reigning world champion Jake Dennis has been without a wingman once again.
Contract talks in the paddock are starting to take place, with Andretti wanting more from Nato before the team decides whether to retain the 31-year-old.
With F2 drivers Zane Maloney and Jak Crawford testing for the American outfit on Monday, RacingNews365 asked Griffiths if it was like a job interview foe the duo.
"Yeah, I mean, we are always looking at how the drivers are performing," Griffiths said. "We have not made any decisions as far as Season 11 goes with what the driver line-up will be, other than Jake is going to be in the car.
"We've given Norman a timeline, he's well aware of it. He's a professional, he knows what he has to do. We don't tell him you have to score a certain number of points by a certain point. I don't want to put any more pressure on him that he is already putting on yourself.
"I think if we do that, we're actually going to go backwards. So we'll let him do his talking on the racetrack. We know this person and what he's delivered off-track for us is more than acceptable.
"He's just, can you turn it around on the racetrack? He's been there or thereabouts. And there's been circumstances where he's put himself out of races and then there's been circumstances where others have taken him out in races"
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'Bit early' for talks
Whilst the pressure is seemingly on Nato to improve immediately, the Frenchman does not see the need for contract talks to be rushed.
He has outlined the upcoming double-header in Shanghai which follows this weekend's Berlin E-Prix as the place where the future will start being discussed.
"It's still really early, like I got the seat last year really, really late," Nato told RacingNews365. "Same for some other people.
"At the end, in Formula E everything is going so quickly, so it's already crazy to say that in eight races it's already finished. So nobody wants to rush, we have time, it's not like you have to decide now.
"I would say that after maybe Shanghai, I think it will be more of a window where everyone will be kind of sitting down and deciding everything. Right now is still a bit early."
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