Haas team principal Guenther Steiner says he doesn’t want to hire an inexperienced driver or one who might only be with the team for a single season.

Steiner is weighing up whether to change his current pairing of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean for the 2020 F1 season . Magnussen has a deal in place to continue at the team but tensions have risen between the two drivers who have collided three times this year.

If he does bring a new driver in, Steiner wants someone who can stay with the team long-term. “It would need to be more for one year,” he said. “I think to be a training ground, we don’t want to be that.”

Recent experience of F1 is especially important, Steiner added. “If you are out two years it is getting very difficult for somebody to take the risk for a team to make a comeback for somebody.”

Pietro Fittipaldi, the team’s official test driver, is not currently able to graduate to F1 because he does not have enough FIA superlicence points. However Steiner said that is not limiting their choice of drivers.

“There is a small pool to pick from but that is not down to superlicences because at the moment we are talking about experienced drivers, not about newcomers,” he said.

However he believes the requirement for drivers to score a minimum of 40 superlicence points in order to enter F1 could reduce teams’ choice of drivers in the future.

“I think the new guys, there is not many around,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a problem right now, that will be more of an issue in the years coming, that there is not many people with a superlicence around and you have to replace people with people which have not been in F1.

“At the moment there’s enough people around which have been in F1. But it will become a problem I will say in five years.”

F1 wants a “high profile” team from the US to join the championship. Where can it find one? Doesn’t it already have one? Read Dieter Rencken’s analysis in today’s edition of his RacingLines column

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2019 F1 season