Haas team boss Guenther Steiner has suggested the US outfit could call upon the services of an experienced driver in 2022 to help Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin develop next year's car.
Steiner believes that employing two rookie drivers this season has deprived Haas of a "reference" upon which it can rely on regarding the development of its car.
The Italian has tabled therefore the idea of relying on a third driver in 2022 to assist Schumacher and Mazepin when F1 introduces its all-new regulations, although it's unclear how an experienced driver would contribute his expertise given the lack of in-season testing.
"You're fully right there, we have no reference, the reference is missing," Steiner said in Russia. "And that is an experienced driver.
"So I don't know exactly how we're going to do it, there is more than one way to do these things. We talked a little bit about it, but didn't really do anything.
"But I want to see how they get on. And you can see a lot from data how much they improved and stuff like this, you can get a lot of information.
"When we get there, we'll find a solution also for that if we need to, and I'm not sure that we need to."
One viable option for Haas would be to entrust its car to a third driver in selected practice sessions on Friday. But such a plan would obviously rob Schumacher or Mazepin of track time, a shortfall that would perhaps defeat the purpose of boosting the two young guns' experience.
"It is always difficult if you take on a reserve for a reference driver, call it like this, that will take them out of the car in testing and everything," commented Steiner. "And I think we have to get to that point at some stage.
"I will discuss it internally with the engineers, what is best for the team, but we haven't made a decision. There's a lot of these ideas floating around. But we haven't taken that decision."
Steiner reckons he'll only resort to using a third driver if Haas' all-new 2022 car warrants outside input.
"Hopefully we don't need to do this, because that's also not good if you put somebody in just to give you a reference, and then [the race drivers] lose time to drive it," he added.
"So it's very difficult decision to take. And I just hope that our car is stable enough that they can get everything out as much as possible.
"The better the car is, the easier it is for them to develop it. A stable car makes you go quicker, because it gives you confidence."
Regarding the fate of third drivers in 2022, the FIA has mandated that all ten F1 teams run a rookie in two free practice sessions in 2022, a change to the sporting rules that Haas will also need to consider next season.
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