The Mexican has made good progress in recent races after a difficult start to the campaign, but has yet to score a world championship point for the Haas outfit.

While teammate Romain Grosjean's place at Haas is certain for next year, the team's management is going to wait a bit longer before deciding on its second driver.

Reflecting on the season so far and driver plans for next year, Haas said: "I think we've done spectacular in terms of previous team's attempts in Formula 1.

"I think a lot of that goes to myself, Gunther and Joe Custer. When we set out to put the F1 team together, we were really there to race as opposed to try to be the traditional constructor. I think so far our business model has worked really well.

"As far as drivers, we alluded that Grosjean, because of his contract, will be back next year.

"With Esteban, he's a great driver, but we haven't really announced anything yet because there's no real reason to. We'll just kind of see how things go forward and what happens.

"At the moment we feel good with our current drivers. Like I say, we haven't definitively said whether Esteban is the driver for next year or not. That doesn't necessarily mean that he won't be either."

Gutierrez's position is slightly complicated because it is understood that his deal with Haas is linked with sponsorship that the Mexican brings to its technical partner Ferrari.

Team principal Gunther Steiner has long made it clear that he wants an experienced driver alongside Grosjean next year rather than a rookie.

Interview by Lee Spencer