Nikita Mazepin did not really get off to the best of starts in his Formula 1 career, considering solely his on-track mishaps including spins and collisions. Unlike other drivers, the number of mistakes made by Mazepin has been quite high.
His poor form has not been doing any good to his team either, Haas boss Guenther Steiner said.
Haas is not a very financially sound outfit at the moment. The number of mistakes that Mazepin makes takes a toll on their overall budget.
Steiner spoke about the financial constraints the team is under and how Mazepin has not done much to help their cause. The Haas boss further said that it is impossible to account for this by creating a “fixed accident budget”.
“It always hurts the budget. But of course, we have taken into account that there will be accidents. Here you go according to the empirical values from previous years. So there is no fixed accident budget,” he said.
“It is also not always possible to simply set off a loss in terms of money. Sometimes a car had old parts on it that were at the end of their life anyway.”
Mazepin is not in his best form at the moment and Steiner is aware of that. However, the Russian still has backing of his boss.
With two race weekends already gone, Mazepin has done little to help his case. His first race did not go beyond Turn 3 of the opening lap. But, his second race was much cleaner. He did collide with Nicholas Latifi, but the race officials deemed it a racing incident.
Mazepin was also a lot slower than teammate Mick Schumacher with a whopping 60-second gap between the two. This came after Schumacher spun into a wall and had to drive two laps without the front wing.
Can the Russian show more potential in the upcoming races? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
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