Haas F1's Guenther Steiner has revealed that Ferrari asked him to change the team's driver line-up for 2018 in order to incorporate one of its young drivers into a full-time Formula 1 drive.
Ferrari currently has one of the most promising line-ups of junior drivers in Formula 1, with Antonio Giovinazzi and the newly crowned F2 champion Charles Leclerc both being ready to step up to motorsport's premier racing series.
While Leclerc looks set to join Sauber for 2018, Haas' Steiner has said that Ferrari appraoched the Amercan outfit about replacing either Kevin Magnussen or Romain Grosjean despite both being under contract for next season.
"We work very closely with Ferrari together on things but they respect our decisions," Steiner told RACER.
"We are very open with them about what we are doing because that's the only way the partnership works – there is no playing games.
"We know we have got these two drivers and sometimes you need to look after the long term, because next year is short term. Sure, they asked us if we can do something, and we said no. It's fine.
"We make our plans and try to plan as well as possible. When we signed these drivers we had to make the plans together. We need to be consistent.
"I wouldn't say we would confuse ourselves without help from outside but everything is new for us and while consistency sometimes goes against you – sometimes fresh blood helps you do better – we need to build a base.
"For that, consistency is important. I think we work with both of our drivers very well so at the moment for us there is nothing to be changed," he added.
Steiner also enforced his opinion that having both Grosjean and Magnussen at the team is helping the outfit develop in its very early stages at the pinnacle of motorsport, having only joined the F1 grid last season.
"Yeah, I think these guys help but I cannot say if it would have been different if we had someone else in the car, because we don't have the years of experience to say, 'With this guy we did better than that one.'," he said.
"We're only in our second year and sometimes you forget that. It looks like we've been here forever now but we've not. Like in any business or sport, you have your ups and downs but I think we are pretty stable and for sure the drivers are helping to grow the team."
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