Steiner intent on being 'firmer' with drivers, mulls team orders

Haas boss Guenther Steiner is ready to impose a hard-line attitude on his drivers after Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen's repeated on-track clashes.

After a contact on the opening lap ruined the pair's race at Silverstone, and despite a stern warning from Steiner, Grosjean and Magnussen banged wheels again at Hockenheim last weekend.

The encounter did not result in terminal consequences for either driver, but the skirmish did aggravate Steiner who admitted he may resort to team orders in Hungary to keep the pair in line.

• Steiner warns F1 against rushing into change in 2021

"I’m going to sit down with them today," Steiner said on Thursday, quoted by Crash.net. "Let’s see what comes out of it, how they see it, and what we need to do to go forward in the future.

"Maybe it ends up that we tell them what to do, decide who is doing what when they are close to each other.

"When they are close to each other, I think we need to take it out of their control who is doing what.

"I think I have to [be firmer]. It’s the only solution, to be firm with them, and tell them what to do, and when they get close to each other, go from there."

"So, I say enough and think about it and then do something, because if I go in like Silverstone and get the same type of upset with them, that’s not constructive.

"I need to come up with something better that we get proper control of it and move forward from there, because it is not acceptable towards the team.

"The team is again suffering if you keep on doing this."

A more ominous piece of information revealed by Steiner regarding Grosjean and Magnussen was the fact that the clashes could determine the team's 2020 line-up.

"Absolutely, yes," the Italian said, although he also insisted that the team's choice for next season would likely be dependent on how the driver market itself unfolds in the coming weeks.

“It’s like very year, somewhere some domino has to fall and then all the other ones get in place," Steiner said.

"There is a lot of non-movement at the moment, everyone knows. Who is the first one to move here, and then the other ones will fall in place.

"Maybe nothing moves and then nothing falls in place. But at the moment nobody has moved and until something moves there is a lot of things going on.

"There’s quite a few drivers out of contract and if they are all confirmed, it is very difficult that a lot of things move."

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