Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner says his team will announce their 2023 driver line-up before the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Following Williams’ announcement that Logan Sargeant would drive for them alongside Alex Albon next year, the second seat at Haas alongside Kevin Magnussen is the one remaining drive available on the 2023 grid. It is thought that the two drivers in contention are incumbent Mick Schumacher and current Aston Martin reserve driver Nico Hulkenberg. Speaking to RTL , Steiner said a decision on Haas’ 2023 line-up would be announced before Abu Dhabi, and potentially before the preceding Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, with the Italian rating Schumacher’s chance of retaining his seat as “50-50,”. “For me it's no longer about one race, one lap. For me, it's about what's best for the Haas team in the medium to long term," said Steiner. "It's not like if Mick scores points now, he has the place or not," Steiner continued, adding that a decisive factor in choosing a driver would be taking into consideration "who is capable of leading the team stably into the future.”
Haas weighing up Schumacher and Hulkenberg
Now in his second season in F1 and with Haas, Schumacher scored his first championship points with eighth place at the British Grand Prix, before immediately following that up with a fine sixth in Austria, where he notably battled with Lewis Hamilton. However, the German has only 12 points to Magnussen’s 24, and has come in for criticism for a number of unforced errors, with heavy shunts in Jeddah, Monaco and Suzuka drawing a public rebuke from Steiner. By contrast, Hulkenberg has not driven regularly in F1 since 2019, when he was dropped by Renault, but has competed in a handful of races since then as a substitute at Aston Martin, including in the team’s previous guise as Racing Point. It was announced earlier this week that Aston Martin would be replacing Hulkenberg as test and reserve driver for 2023 with Stoffel Vandoorne, fuelling speculation that the German had been offered a role elsewhere.
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