Guenther Steiner has admitted that Nikita Mazepin’s Formula 1 future is under threat after Russia invaded Ukraine.

After a nightmare rookie season that saw Mazepin struggle with the ill-handling VF-21, hopes were high that the radically different VF-22 could turn Mazepin’s fortunes around.

But just as it seemed things were on the up, questions regarding Mazepin’s future began to surface after Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would invade Ukraine, with the crisis displacing millions of citizens in the process.

Mazepin’s father, Dmitry, who is the CEO of fertiliser company Uralkali, was summoned to the Kremlin along with 36 highly influential business people. During that meeting, Putin explained to the group of businesspeople that he had no choice but to invade Ukraine.

At the end of yesterday’s running, Haas elected to remove all Uralkali stickers from the team’s transporters and the VF-22 as a mark of solidarity with Ukraine.

During the morning session, Haas announced that Mazepin wouldn’t attend today’s press conference, with the Russian Grand Prix being effectively cancelled due to the growing crisis.

Talking to the media in Barcelona today, Steiner has admitted that Mazepin’s future is in doubt, as he also expressed his desire to see the issue dealt with sooner rather than later.

“Yeah, it needs to be resolved; as I said before, not everything depends from us here. There is more than the F1 team involved, there are governments involved, so I have no idea what is coming from that side.”

The Italian also addressed intense media speculation regarding whether the team was financially stable enough to survive if the partnership with Uralkali came to an abrupt end.

“After what happened yesterday morning, it was the decision we wanted to take; it’s one of these decisions you sometimes need to take – the events of yesterday morning triggered this one.”

“When we signed the deal with Uralkali, who would have known that there would be a war going on in a year’s time? I had no impact on that one. Everything was going fine until this happened, but in life, sometimes you need to make decisions even if they’re not easy, and they come to you, and you just need to deal with it.”

“It’s not something which disturbs the team of the competition side, and financially we are okay; there is more ways to get the funding, so there is no issue with that one.”