Exclusive
'Want to buy a new chassis? Totally fine with me, you can buy five of them'
- Ludo van Denderen
In Formula 1, everything - yes, really everything - inside and outside on the car is carefully tested and examined. It is then up to the driver to go as fast as possible with it. But sometimes, when performance is not as desired, a driver does start to doubt his equipment. Guenther Steiner experienced just that during his time as team principal of Haas F1. Namely, Nikita Mazepin and his father were convinced there was something wrong with the chassis. And what do you do when you have a billionaire Russian as a father?
Dmitri Mazepin, Nikita's father, has had enough with how the 2021 season was going. Mick Schumacher, as Mazepin's teammate, was consistently faster than his son, and he believed something was wrong. There is no other explanation. His suspicion? Something was wrong with the chassis. But the Haas team had already completely dismantled the car several times and no technical fault could be found anywhere. Still, Mazepin's father insisted.
Guenther Steiner, in an exclusive interview with GPblog he was not going to have a prolonged debate about it. "I said to him, ‘I'm not going to pay for a new chassis because there's nothing wrong with the chassis’. He said, ‘I want a new chassis’. Okay. He said, 'I have no problem to pay'. Okay, then we buy one. It's easy. It's like, I'm not fighting if he wants to buy one. I mean, he can buy five chassis. I'm fine with that, as long as he pays them."
Steiner says: 'This is who I am'
And so it happened, a new chassis was paid for. "It will not make any difference. But you cannot... Why would I fight that battle? But that's me. It's like, I said, there's nothing wrong with the chassis. I know that. We have got all the tests and everything. ‘I want a new chassis’. Okay, you get a new chassis, if you want to buy a new chassis, if you want to order two new ones, have it. The guys are happy to build them," Steiner now laughs about the incident.
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