Steiner ranks his former Haas drivers: Mick Schumacher only in P4

(Motorsport-Total.com) - Former Haas team boss Günther Steiner has evaluated and ranked the Formula 1 drivers under his leadership at the American racing team - with a positive result for German fans and at the same time a not so good one.

The trick: The South Tyrolean was asked to rank five of his riders individually "blindly," meaning without knowing who would be coming later or not. This is a popular trend on social media where you have to rank something but aren't allowed to re-rank it afterwards, which sometimes leads to strange results.

Steiner was now allowed to sort five of his former drivers from 1 to 5 on the Instagram profile for RTL's Formula 1 division.

It all began with a Formula 1 driver from the very beginning: Romain Grosjean. The Frenchman helped build the racing team when it joined in 2016 and remained with the team until his fiery accident in Bahrain in 2020.

Although Grosjean presumably had the greatest influence on the team, Steiner placed him in the middle in third place.

Then Nico Hülkenberg's name was mentioned – and without much thought, Steiner placed the German at the top of the list. For Steiner, Hülkenberg was the best Haas driver in history, even though he only completed one season for the team under Steiner.

Kevin Magnussen was then placed in second place between Hülkenberg and Grosjean by the former team boss.

The fourth name was that of Mick Schumacher. However, only positions four and five remained for him. Steiner considered it briefly, but then placed the German in fourth place instead of the very last place.

Even though Oliver Bearman will contest his first Formula 1 season with Haas in 2025, the Englishman isn't a candidate for this list. He will contest his first Grand Prix in Jeddah in 2024 for Ferrari, replacing Carlos Sainz. The list of real Haas debutants is short and can be found in this photo gallery .

That left only one spot to be filled – and the name was: Nikita Mazepin, Schumacher's teammate at Haas in 2021 and significantly inferior to him. Is he satisfied with his ranking? "Yes, very satisfied," laughs Steiner.

Not represented in the ranking were Esteban Gutierrez, who drove for the Americans in Haas' debut year in 2016, and Pietro Fittipaldi, who replaced Grosjean in the last two races of 2020. These two also competed for Haas under Steiner.

The two current drivers, Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman, however, never drove with Steiner as team boss - although Bearman was at least used in Friday practice sessions.