Haas jumped to the defence of embattled driver Nikita Mazepin after he was accused of breaching a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ again in qualifying at Imola.
The Russian courted anger in Bahrain after jumping the queue before spinning at the start of his final flying lap in Q1. And on Saturday, he earned the wrath of Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi, after the pair were seen running side-by-side down the main straight, effectively ruining both their chances of making it into Q2.
Szczerze powiem nie wiem ile jeszcze do lewej krawędzi mógł zjechać Nikita Mazepin żeby Antonio Giovinazzi poczuł się komfortowo na torze? #F1PL #ImoGP21 #Q1 https://t.co/enBrumQ2mo pic.twitter.com/eBg72zqO15
— The Pocisk (@The_Pocisk) April 17, 2021
“It’s quite clear – we respect each other when starting the lap and he didn’t respect,” the Italian commented afterwards. “This is really not correct for a qualifying lap and I didn’t make my last lap so yeah, difficult to say.”
Like Bahrain, Mazepin pinned the blame on his engineer, claiming he was given the go-ahead to push when he did.
“In F1 it’s a bit difficult as there are 20 cars obviously in Q1, which is where we are,” he said. “Everyone is going out at the same time and the track is just not big enough for all of us.
“We had this chat about the gentleman’s agreement and obviously I didn’t have a problem with that, but when there are three seconds on the clock, it’s either you go or you have to box, and you’re going across the start/finish first.
“So I don’t think there’s an issue with it. I’m here to do my laps and, you know, we are all in the same world.”
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Haas boss Guenther Steiner echoed Mazepin because, in his view, gentleman’s agreements are “not enforceable”.
“No. I don’t think so,” he said on if the F2 graduate did anything wrong. “What he did, it was getting very tight with the time so I think the car in front knows we have been on the receiving end as well a few times so then you need to do what you need to do.
“We are not doing it on purpose but it is getting very busy at the end of sessions like this so you just have to go and hope for the best because if you don’t go, you lose the lap anyway.
“I don’t think that you can call this a gentleman’s agreement because, then again, Antonio could have gone fast as well.
“He knew that Nikita was behind him and he needed to make the chequered flag, not miss it.
“I think it is unfortunate. No one is doing this on purpose or anything you know but it is racing and you need to try to take every opportunity you have got.”