Steiner explains why Mazepin is struggling more than Schumacher with Haas F1 car

While Schumacher made a positive step forward at the Portuguese Grand Prix last time out and pulled off a late overtake on Williams driver Nicholas Latifi to take 17th, Mazepin finished last for the second race in a row having crashed out on the first lap of his debut in Bahrain.

The Russian’s early-season struggles appear to be continuing at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, with Mazepin spinning in opening practice on Friday and finishing at the bottom of the timesheets in both sessions, almost 0.4s adrift of Schumacher in FP2.

The American team has opted against developing its 2021 F1 car in order to focus on 2022 and Steiner believes that Mazepin’s struggles have been exacerbated by several “deficiencies” of the VF-21 that have prevented him from finding a balance he is happy with.

“I think Mick maybe can adapt more, or quicker to what the car is doing,” Steiner said. "I mean, we all know the car is not very good, and we always said that, so as much as my colleagues here are struggling, I wish I would have one of their cars.

“In the end, I think [with] Nikita, we just need to try to get him a better balance as well. So the deficiencies of the car, to overcome them a little bit, the car is very unstable in turn-in and I guess Mick maybe can manage that one better and Nikita struggles a little bit more, because he wants the rear end, just to be confident that it sticks.

“So, it’s one of the things where we need to try to get Nikita into a better spot, that he feels more confident – because if he has no confidence in his car, it’s very difficult to drive them, because, you know, the speeds you are going, it is not easy, so that is what you are trying to do.”

Steiner admitted that Haas’ current focus is largely spent on trying to help Mazepin overcome his difficulties and get him up to speed with Schumacher, who has comfortably outclassed his former F2 rival so far.

“Surely we look at Mick to see why he’s getting more out and try to get Nikita up to the same speed,” he explained. “So the focus is actually more on Nikita, to get him up to speed, than on Mick.

“We just need to understand why he gets more out of the car, see how the car is set up. It’s too early to put up a leadership because the next thing is someone will say Mick is the number one and it’s not like that. It’s an equal status.

“Both have got the same car and that is what we will keep. We are only on race weekend four, not even race four yet, so I think to jump to all these conclusions is too early but for sure Mick is at the moment ahead. But I’m pretty sure we can get Nikita there as well.”