Guenther Steiner has revealed that he intends to think about Kevin Magnussen's future with the Haas team after "at least another five races". In 2022, the squad made a decision over Mick Schumacher's future at a late point in the year, with the confirmation that Schumacher would be replaced by Nico Hulkenberg in 2023 coming just before the season finale in Abu Dhabi. While Hulkenberg has a multi-year deal with the team, Steiner is again facing another driver decision in terms of Magnussen's contract.
Impact of Hulkenberg's arrival on Magnussen
Magnussen outperformed Schumacher in 2022, but Steiner believes that the more experienced Hulkenberg's arrival into the squad has pushed the Dane. "We all know what Kevin can be doing but we all need to be pushed," Steiner told Mirror Sport . "Kevin is not in a happy place at the moment, being behind Nico. In qualifying he is not happy. He is happy for the team and he knows the car is there for him to be able to do it – he just needs to get it done." Steiner is confident that Magnussen can "step up" in the races ahead. "I'm pretty sure that he can get it done," the team boss added. "He's got the talent and he did it before, he just needs to step up and get everything out of it that's there. "It's much easier having an experienced teammate who you can look at and say, 'How is he doing that?'. They get all the data from each other and they can see it. And it shows that he cares."
Haas hope to finalise 2024 driver line-up early
While Steiner is not in any rush to make a decision over Magnussen's contract, the Italian hopes to address the situation earlier than Schumacher's future was decided at the end of 2022. "In the end it is all down to performance but, at the moment, I'm pretty relaxed about it," Steiner explained. "I want to at least give another five races to see where we are and then start to think about it. "I always said last year that I would have loved to have set the drivers earlier, but we wanted to give Mick the chance to show what he can do. "Hopefully this year we can confirm what we are doing before the summer break because it's not nice from my point of view. "People ask and I answer – that's fine – but it's also the work behind it and the team not knowing what they need to do. Hopefully we can get a confirmation of our driver line-up for next year earlier than we did last year."
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