The futures of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean at Haas beyond 2019 may not have been decided yet, but the team are unlikely to be taking a chance on a rookie driver next year, according to boss Guenther Steiner. After 12 races of the season, their focus is on improving the car, not cultivating young drivers.

Steiner has a puzzle to solve, having watched Haas go from regular points contenders in 2018 to midfield strugglers this year, as they continue to try and get to grips with Pirelli's tyre compounds and intra-team rivalries. With that in mind, there’s little room for the US squad to take on a rookie. It would be too much of a risk, as he explained.

“These decisions are actually very difficult to make," he said. "It’s an opportunity but it comes at a high risk rate, so it’s more like as a team we could do it, but do we want to do it? Because I think again this year if we had two rookies or a rookie, it wouldn’t help us, because we are a little bit lost where we are with the tyres and a rookie doesn’t help you.”

The rookie in the running would be Ferrari Driver Academy member Pietro Fittipaldi, Haas’s 2019 test driver and grandson of two-time Formula 1 world champion Emerson Fittipaldi. But the Brazilian hasn’t taken part in a Free Practice Session this season, as Steiner and the team have more pressing priorities.