Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says he will not resort to team orders to prevent Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin from clashing on track, insisting the pair must learn to fight each other cleanly.
Schumacher and Mazepin have suffered several flash points this season, starting in Baku where an aggressive move by the Russian driver nearly resulted in a high-speed crash.
A double altercation at Zandvoort, in qualifying and on race day, boosted tensions between the pair, while another contact ensued at Monza when Mazepin punted Schumacher into a spin at the Roggia chicane, a move that earned the Russian a five-second time penalty from the Italian Grand Prix stewards.
Despite the messy on-track duels, Steiner explained in Sochi why he won't bring his drivers in line with team orders.
"They have to learn to fight, but they have to do that without doing damage, without damaging themselves or the team," the Italian said.
"Right now it’s very difficult because we’re in that position where there’s nothing to fight for except from each other. They’re learning.
"It doesn’t seem right to me giving orders, saying who’s ahead in qualifying stays ahead, because they don’t learn and the team doesn’t grow. Here we hope we will have few problems."
After Schumacher and Mazepin's dangerous near collision in the Dutch Grand Prix, Schumacher doubted his contentious relationship with his teammate could be resolved.
But Steiner says the two drivers are talking and trying to get their act together.
"I saw they are talking with each other about how to avoid these problems they have on track during the race but also during the qualifying," he said.
"They are talking and I’m sure at some point they’ll reach a point where they’ll say it’s better not do that because it’s not good for them as well.
"They are growing, they have to learn that, sometimes doing a step backwards means doing two steps forward."
A sense of harmony and a productive working relationship between Haas' chargers is important given that both drivers have been confirmed for 2022.
Steiner said that there was never any doubt that the tandem's tenure with the US outfit would be extended into second season.
"It was a confirmation, it was planned the drivers would have been confirmed anyway, I said for a while that it was just a matter of time," he explained.
"But we confirmed them because we made the plan last year.
"We invested in the future, we invested in the car, we didn’t make any upgrades this year because we know this year’s car is what it is and we invested in 2022, and the same thing is for the drivers.
"We said we would take two youngsters and we would make them grow up. That’s what we did. We’re at a point where we said it’s all right, and we confirmed them at least for another year."
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