The whole world is watching closely how the conflict between Russia and Ukraine evolves. F1 made the decision to cancel the GP in Sochi under the circumstances and Haas decided to drop the Russian flag from the livery and run with a white livery out of respect for the Ukrainian people. This puts Nikita Mazepin in a situation where his future as a F1 driver could be affected.

Talking to Bob Varsha on Speed City Broadcasting, Team Principal Steiner explained: “If Nikita couldn´t driver for one or another reason, the first call would go to Pietro.

Obviously, he´s been with us for a few years then, we´ll see what we do next. Pietro is always around with us. Last year, we needed a reserve driver around (because of Covid). He´s always around, he knows the team, he knows the car. To Jump in from one day to the other there´s nobody better than Pietro around in the moment.”

Haas is the only American team at the moment but could be joined in the future by Michael Andretti. When he was asked by Michael Andretti´s intention to build a F1 team from scratch. He said: “I think Michael wants a F1 team. He tried last year to buy Sauber which was not successful. Now he tries this way. I don´t know how´s the FIA process. I know the FOM process, you need to pay for your license and FOM will decide with the teams together what to do. In the end, it´s a decision of the FOM and not the teams but for sure the teams will have an opinion because it impacts everybody; the revenue will be split between more people, more teams so, obviously decreasing. So, I don´t think everybody will be happy about it.”

He added he will give his opinion once it´s all official. For the moment, he explained, there was no official communication to the teams.