Haas turned down Ferrari request to run young driver in race seat

Haas Formula 1 chief Günther Steiner has revealed the team turned down a request from technical partner Ferrari to field one of its young drivers in a race seat for the 2018 season.

Haas became F1's newest team when it joined the grid in 2016, enjoying heavy technical support from Ferrari that played a part in running the Italian marque's reserve driver Esteban Gutierrez as one of its full-time drivers.

Gutierrez was dropped after one year to make way for Kevin Magnussen, who alongside Romain Grosjean was confirmed to be staying on for 2018 earlier this summer after signing a multi-year contract.

Ferrari is currently working to get junior drivers Charles Leclerc and Antonio Giovinazzi into race seats for 2018, with Steiner confirming Haas had received a request to field one of them, only to turn it down.

"We work very closely with Ferrari together on things but they respect our decisions. 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," Steiner told RACER.

"We know we have got these two drivers and sometimes you need to look after the long term, because next year is short term.

"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."

Steiner went on to hail the consistency offered by Magnussen and Grosjean at Haas, with the pair taking the team well beyond its constructors' championship points haul from its debut season.

"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."