Explained: The reasons Mick Schumacher was axed by Haas

The American outfit confirmed on Thursday that it has signed F1 veteran Hulkenberg to replace Schumacher as Kevin Magnussen’s new teammate next season. 

35-year-old Hulkenberg has not raced full-time in F1 since 2019 but impressed during five substitute appearances for Racing Point and Aston Martin since 2020. 

Speaking to media including Crash.net on Thursday ahead of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Steiner said Hulkenberg’s experience was key to the team’s decision. 

“He was in F1 a long time and he was with teams in the midfield for a long time so he knows how they work, how to make them better,” Steiner said. 

“And we looked at that wherever he was the team always made progress and we hope, that’s our aim to do that as well here and that’s why it came up that choice.” 

He added: “I would say Mick doesn’t have the experience Nico has got, you know? And we needed experience to bring the team forward because I don’t want to say the driver wasn’t ready for the future, the team also needs to be a lot better for the future to get better.”

Despite Hulkenberg’s lack of seat time, Steiner said Haas have no concerns about the German’s fitness. He also confirmed Hulkenberg will drive for Haas in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. 

“We looked at that one as well but when he came in, when he replaced drivers in the last years, he was pretty on the ball straight away,” Steiner said. 

“Aston Martin just texted us now that they let him drive for us on Tuesday. Thanks to them for letting us do that. And then we can sharpen him up next week, and then also we have got the pre-season testing in Bahrain and I think he will be straight on it. 

“Physically these F1 cars they are quite demanding and it will take him some time to get used to it because the only way you train your muscles is driving the cars. 

“We cross that bridge next year but he’s pretty fit and I don’t see it. We obviously had that question as well, is he straight on the ball when he comes back after being out. But then you look at the results he did when he just jumped in at the last minute, he was pretty good.” 

‘Not an easy decision’ to replace Schumacher 

Steiner stressed the decision to part with Schumacher was “not an easy one” and revealed the contract with Hulkenberg was only signed on Wednesday. 

Steiner said the team would not have stuck with Schumacher even if he qualified on pole position in Brazil, and insisted it is not fair to say the German fell short of expectations. 

“It’s difficult to answer that one because what is the expectation?” Steiner explained. “But maybe we see things in the team now, which we need to fix in the team, where we can do better with somebody else. 

“Take aside his performance and so on, it’s more like we need to bring the whole team up, not only the driver. It’s not Mick’s fault that we are where we are, we have ourselves to blame. 

“But we need to come up again and there is a shorter way by taking a guy with a lot of experience, has done this in multiple teams which were in very similar positions to where we are now.” 

Asked how big a factor Schumacher’s costly crashes were, Steiner replied: “It’s part of it, but you cannot just say ‘he crashed’, which obviously was not good. 

“I’m not trying to say that is good now, but how much influence have his very good results had? It’s this balance you need to find. Where he finished in Austria and Silverstone were very good results but then you had the bad things, the crashes. 

“So it’s the mix of it but it was not one event, as much as it looks like, triggered this. It’s a combination of things and the biggest thing going forwards is we wanted to build up the team again.”