Mick Schumacher may be wholly reliant on a contract extension from Haas as he is "not a serious option for AlphaTauri ", according to a report from Germany.
The son of seven-time world champion Michael has been with Haas for two seasons, but may not get a third. Team chief Guenther Steiner has made it clear he is thinking long and hard about who should compete alongside Kevin Magnussen next year, and that he will not be rushed into a decision.
It leaves Schumacher's Formula 1 career in jeopardy, though, with alternative options dwindling for the German. With Alfa Romeo expected to continue with Zhou Guanyu, Williams, Alpine and AlphaTauri are the only other teams still weighing up their options.
Pierre Gasly will be racing for one of the latter two outfits, and Nyck de Vries is believed to be a shoo-in for one of the available seats as well. It leaves just one other seat for Schumacher to target if Haas choose to go with the experience of either Daniel Ricciardo or Nico Hulkenberg.
According to Bild, the 23-year-old is "not a serious option for AlphaTauri so far". But if Gasly were to stay put, then the German outlet suggests he could be considered by Alpine due to Esteban Ocon's public declarations that he would like Schumacher to become his new team-mate.
Meanwhile, Steiner told RTL there is a "50/50" probability that he will choose to extend Schumacher's contract to include next season. But still, he insists, Haas will not be forced into making a quick decision.
"You put yourself under pressure and we don't need that, we're only playing against ourselves," he said. "We don't actually have any time pressure at all – everyone else has time pressure, but we don't and that's an advantage that we don't take away from us."
Steiner has previously said there is a wealth of options available to Haas, as "most drivers with a superlicence" are on their shortlist. One of them is Hulkenberg, who has been a reserve with Aston Martin for the past three seasons but could make a surprise return as a regular racer.
"A man like Nico brings experience with him," said Steiner of the 35-year-old. But he went on to say the ultimate factor considered will be which driver will be considered the most likely to help push Haas up the standings and, as the team principal himself admitted: "You can't calculate that mathematically."
