Haas boss Guenther Steiner is working to defuse tensions between Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher after a tetchy Dutch Grand Prix weekend.
In qualifying, the Russian driver accused Mick of being “cheeky” and said he “won’t tolerate it” after the German jumped ahead on the final out lap in Q1, with the subsequent squabbling also ruining Sebastian Vettel’s lap in the process.
On race day, Schumacher then attempted a pass on Mazepin with DRS on the main straight, only for Nikita to push his teammate almost into the pit wall, with Mick damaging his front wing in the process.
This isn’t the first flashpoint between the two drivers either after incidents in Baku and Paul Ricard. But following the latest moment, Schumacher doesn’t think their relationship can be fixed.
“I don’t think so, to be honest,” he told Sky Sports.
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“It seems like he has this thing in his head where he wants to, by any cost, be in front of me.
“That’s okay, I haven’t anything against it. But I think if we go to the point where we defend very aggressively, against a teammate where you don’t have anything to gain, I think that is maybe not the right approach.”
Mick’s uncle, former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher, has also heavily slammed Mazepin claiming he shouldn’t be in F1 and that Haas is protecting him for financial reasons.
On the race day incident, team boss Steiner put blame on both drivers claiming Nikita did nothing “nasty” and that it takes “two to tango”.
Mick Schumacher trying to pass Nikita Mazepin #DutchGP pic.twitter.com/vMa5IjUj1z
— Pierre Henry (@pete_pedrinho10) September 5, 2021
But now the Italian has his work cut out to try and bring some harmony back to Haas.
“We had a meeting on Sunday and we will have another meeting today,” he commented.
“We will work hard and we will get that problem sorted as well, as we did with a lot of other things.”
Asked if his two drivers understood the limit of where they can push each other, Steiner replied: “I don’t want to comment on that until I have spoken with them both about it because I want their opinion on it, what they think.
“If I say now what I think, I don’t want that to happen. This is not to avoid the question.
“I am actually working on this to get an understanding of where they think the line is and then I want to draw our line. I wouldn’t say my line, but the team’s line.”
Haas has been the slowest team throughout 2021, after opting not to upgrade their car and instead put all their resources into 2022.
And the fact that Schumacher and Mazepin are their only competition isn’t helping the situation.
“I don’t think it is personal, I think it is circumstances because as I continue to say, we are fighting with nobody else than between the two of them,” said Steiner.
“Therefore, this is exaggerated this fight because there is nothing else to fight.
“If we had been in the mix with another three or four cars, you wouldn’t see this because if you do these moves to [someone who is] not your teammate or if you race hard with [someone who is] not your teammate, that doesn’t make a difference.
“With your teammate, it’s almost personal. But they have nobody else to fight so that is what they focus on and that seems to be in my opinion one of the issues there because there is nothing else around them.”
Haas have a history of teammates falling out, with Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen having a few moments, notably at Silverstone, in 2019.
But Steiner does admit he’s happy this is occurring while the team has nothing to lose.
“I’ve been there before, we will sort it, and I think the timing, I’d rather have it now than next year, to be honest,” he said.
“We are in a position where at least we’ve got a little bit of time to sort it still.
“We have got nine races to go, we need to fix this. This is now a big task to do and we will work hard at it.”