Steiner confirms: 'Giovinazzi was candidate to succeed Schumacher'

The battle for Schumacher's seat was a remarkable joust which took place at the end of this season. Throughout the entire second half of the season, Steiner was particularly critical of Schumacher, although he also expressed support for the German on several occasions. Meanwhile, Steiner did throw out an open invitation to Daniel Ricciardo and publicly announced that the team was in talks with Nico Hülkenberg to take over from Schumacher, which was thus eventually decided.

Besides these two names, there were long rumours about another candidate: Giovinazzi. The Italian already drove in Formula 1 for Alfa Romeo from 2019 to 2021 and has the backing of Ferrari. Haas even briefly put Giovinazzi in Magnussen's car in Austin during practice; it was expected to be a test to pit Giovinazzi and Schumacher against each other. To no avail for the Italian: after only seven minutes his car was in the wall. That was also immediately the last time Giovinazzi's name appeared in the rumours.

'Nico was the best choice'

So Steiner has now made it official that the Italian was definitely a candidate. " In the beginning he was on the list," the team boss said. "But I think in the end we made the best decision for the team. Of course everyone has their own opinion about the drivers but for us Nico was the best choice to take the team forward."