Tost: No chance for a team of two rookies in F1 today

With an undeveloped and evil handling car for their rookie seasons, both drivers struggled and thus no surprise that Schumacher, son of legend Michael Schumacher, cost the team over €4-million in damage.

Mazepin was cheaper in terms of trashing the hopeless car, with €2.5-million making it a whopping €6.5-million in repair bills for Haas last year. Not good news for the team teetering on extinction every year as Gene Haas lost interest years ago.

Crashing into each other also did not help matters in a season that did neither driver any favours, other than suggesting Mazepin is not F1 material, while the jury is out on young Schumacher who was solid but not stellar.

While early signs are positive, in fairness Mick did no better than any promising driver, given such a break, would do in his shoes simply because Haas gave him (and Nikita) no tools to even attempt to shine; an evil car - undeveloped for since the start of 2020 (!) they had to drive was way off the pace all year.

The best they could do was stay out of trouble, too often they did not.

The Austrian F1 veteran team boss, who has experience running two rookies in the same season, told Motorsport Network that the two Haas youngsters were doomed from the outset, "Nowadays with this Formula 1, to have two inexperienced drivers you have a real big challenge and in the constructors' championship you will immediately be in the back."

For last year AlphaTauri kept over-delivering and experienced Pierre Gasly in the team, joined by promising but volatile rookie Yuki Tsunoda in the other car.

Tost explained: "There is no chance with two rookies to be in the midfield or in the front because the field is far too competitive, it's too strong. If you look to the qualifying times, it's hundredths of a second.

"In Saudi Arabia, Pierre was at 0.087s behind Leclerc, which is 78 centimetres or whatever, and that was two positions. If you have a young driver, an inexperienced one, you're talking about tenths behind, not thousands.

"I think that the combination with one experienced driver and a rookie is better. Then, of course, if there's a very high skilled young driver, Scuderia AlphaTauri is always in a position and ready to educate," added Tost.

As Toro Rosso team principal Tost mentored the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz when they stepped up into F1 before they hit the big time.