Guenther Steiner admits 22-year-old driver has made him rethink his driver hiring strategy

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Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has admitted that McLaren star Oscar Piastri has made him rethink his driver hiring strategy.

Steiner was predicting plenty of potential changes on the grid heading into 2025 after every team – including Haas – retained their line-ups for next season.

Speaking to Sky Sports, the Italian-American team boss admitted he could be interested in hiring a young driver after the success of Oscar Piastri last season.

It came as little surprise that Haas retained Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen heading into 2024.

The Haas car was incredibly difficult to drive and although it showed some pace in qualifying, it was too harsh on its tyres to ever maintain a challenge on race day.

Haas have been stung by hiring young drivers before, with both Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher previously struggling.

The young German has been tipped to return to F1, but it’s difficult right now to see where an opportunity may arise from.

Steiner has admitted that Oscar Piastri’s success at McLaren has made him reconsider his stance on not hiring rookies.

The Australian won the Sprint Race in Qatar and secured a couple of podiums too.

McLaren have one of the stronger driver pairings on the grid now, with Lando Norris expected to be a race winner sooner rather than later.

Steiner admits Piastri success at McLaren making him rethink driver strategy

Speaking about the driver market, Steiner said: “For 2025, I think there’s a big opportunity for young drivers to come in.

“Because some of them, the drivers who are [on the grid] now maybe will stop doing it at the end of 2024, some of them would have not performed, nobody will pick them up.

“I might see a better opportunity taking a risk on a young driver than keeping somebody who didn’t perform.

“We had it in 2023 when Oscar Piastri came in. Before that everybody was unsure about rookies, he came in and was good straight away.

“So, we now see these things and say OK it worked with Piastri, why would it not work with somebody else?

“You have some history there now.”

Steiner will hope that Haas can produce a car for next season that can compete with Piastri and his McLaren.

That sounds like a tall order right now, but Aston Martin showed last winter how much improvement can be achieved in one off-season.

Hulkenberg and Magnussen will know that their seats are at risk heading into next year and will hope that their latest car can provide them with a few opportunities to score regular points.

Otherwise, there’s one youngster that’s being linked with a drive at Haas that will be hoping to jump into one of their cars in 2025.