Steiner warns Schumacher: 'It's not possible to continue like this'

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says Mick Schumacher cannot continue to have big accidents such as the smash-up he suffered in Monaco and which have taken a serious toll on the team's dwindling 2022 budget.

Schumacher lost control of his VF-22 on the exit of Turn 14, spun and heavily hit the TecPro barrier at the Swimming Pool complex, a 22G impact that pulverized the Haas, separating the gearbox assembly from its chassis.

The young German fortunately walked away from the wreck but it was the second time this season after Jeddah that Schumacher inflicted costly damage to one of the team's cars.

The 23-year-old initially called the accident "weird" but has since understood the reason for the casualty.

"I just misplaced it a bit, and was basically 10 centimetres on the wet patch, which then triggers a double wheelspin in that case, because we have so much power," he explained ahead of this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

"And that kind of then just threw the car into a half-spin, I'm trying to correct it, and it goes into the wall."

But understanding the crash doesn't change its painful consequences which for a small team like Haas are highly priced.

"It's just not possible to continue like this," Steiner said in Baku. "And he knows that. He's also crashing into a wall at some stage. It's also not healthy.

"Obviously he wants to score points, and if you crash into the wall, you don't score points.

"He knows that, so it's like putting pressure on and telling him you shouldn't go and crash. I don't do that. I never do that. Because I think they know that they shouldn't be crashing.

"So I think there's a lot of things going on, but there is not one simple answer. We need to see how we go forward. There's a lot of things we have to sort out now."

Read also:

• Tost backs Schumacher: 'I continue to believe in him'

Steiner said the crashes have already blown up Haas' damage budget for 2022.

"We have passed that allowance, we passed that in Jeddah," said the Austrian. "We are in front of the allowance, I would love to be in front of how many points we scored, but we are in front of the allowance for crashes."

Haas operates well below F1's $140 million cost cap, but its budget is also not expandable.

"The budget cap is not the problem," said Steiner. "The budget is the problem, because we are not at the budget cap.

"So obviously, this is never a good thing to add, and the additional problem we have got now is just the speed to keep up to make parts is getting more and more difficult.

"Dallara, they work day and night just that we have spares here, so we can keep on going. The money is always an issue because you have to pay, but actually the issue was to have enough parts made because the production can do so much.

"You don't have five moulds for fairings, you've got one mould, and if you keep on making them, it takes time. So it was a challenge, but Dallara do a really good job," added the Italian.

"Suspension-wise Ferrari helped us out because we are running low on suspension as well, because they cannot keep up with making it.

"But otherwise with the budget, just something else has to give, you cannot keep on just spending money you haven't got."

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter