Guenther Steiner has revealed that Scuderia Ferrari came to him to request that his Haas F1 Team bring in one of their young drivers into the team for 2018, only for that request to be declined.
Both Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen have already been confirmed for next season, but Ferrari are looking to get both Charles Leclerc and Antonio Giovinazzi into race seats, with at least one of those, probably Leclerc, set to join the Sauber F1 Team.
Steiner says the relationship between Haas and Ferrari remains strong despite the rebuttal, with the team having always said it would be there decision alone to decide on its driver line-up.
“We work very closely with Ferrari together on things but they respect our decisions,” said Steiner to RACER. “We are very open with them about what we are doing because that’s the only way the partnership works – there is no playing games.
“We know we have got these two drivers and sometimes you need to look after the long term, because next year is short term. Sure, they asked us if we can do something, and we said no. It’s fine.
“We make our plans and try to plan as well as possible. When we signed these drivers we had to make the plans together. We need to be consistent.
“I wouldn’t say we would confuse ourselves without help from outside but everything is new for us and while consistency sometimes goes against you – sometimes fresh blood helps you do better – we need to build a base. For that, consistency is important. I think we work with both of our drivers very well so at the moment for us there is nothing to be changed.”