Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu has revealed he would be lying if he had not considered replacing Kevin Magnussen for the remainder of the season with Ollie Bearman.
Magnussen serves a one-race ban for this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix after collecting 12 penalty points with a 12-month period, automatically triggering a suspension of his super licence.
As reserve driver, and the man who will replace Magnussen at Haas next year, Komatsu has naturally turned to Bearman as the Dane's replacement for this weekend, his second super-sub appearance after he deputised for Carlos Sainz in Saudi Arabia after the Spaniard contracted appendicitis.
Conjecture followed as to whether Bearman would continue for the remainder of the campaign to help him build into his rookie year in 2025.
Asked whether it had crossed his mind, Komatsu said: "If I said zero consideration, I'd be lying, but it's not a serious consideration at this minute."
Monza showed how Magnussen can race
The reason why is due to Magnussen's performance in the Italian Grand Prix in which he still finished 10th despite being hit with a 10-second penalty for a collision with Alpine's Pierre Gasly, an incident that also saw him collect the two penalty points that led to the ban.
"You saw in Monza how Kevin can race," said Komatsu. "This is Kevin's strength. He can race. Sometimes he can be too aggressive, like in Miami, but then he can race like he did in Monza.
"Was it last year in Austin when he did a one-stop strategy? So on his day, he can deliver amazing racing, and that Monza race was so strong. Honestly, that incident with Gasly was minor as far as I'm concerned.
"So when we then told him to open up 10-second gap to Albon, bearing in mind that in qualifying us and Albon were neck and neck, honestly, I never believed he could open up that much of a gap. Maybe three, four seconds at best.
"But then for him to open up a nine-second gap, and then no mistakes, on the edge, but amazing delivery, that is what Kevin can do.
"So no real consideration of putting Ollie in instead of Kevin for the rest of the season."
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