Mazepin gets new F1 chassis for Belgian GP after ‘heavy car’ complaints

After the Styrian Grand Prix, Mazepin said he had found it difficult to match Mick Schumacher’s performance in the race and claimed he had a weight disadvantage which had left him feeling like “a sitting duck”.

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner confirmed Mazepin was in line for a replacement in the coming races and has now revealed the Russian rookie will run the new chassis from this weekend’s race at Spa-Francorchamps.

“He got a new one,” said Steiner. “The chassis are, I don’t know the exact stiffness data, but you cannot change the stiffness of a chassis without changing the homologation.

"It’s a homologated chassis, so it will be very similar. There is always a tolerance in it but I don’t know off the top of my head the tolerance.”

Steiner said the change has “no financial impact” on the American outfit and added Haas will not know whether there is a performance benefit for Mazepin until he has completed Friday practice in the new chassis.

“Performance-wise, we will see tomorrow if there is a difference,” he explained. “I don’t know if Nikita feels any different - that is more down to him than to me.

“But otherwise as I say, it’s homologated chassis. We had two old ones, because one obviously we destroyed last year, we burnt it. We’ll see tomorrow.”