Haas boss Gunther Steiner has admitted a question mark is hanging over Esteban Gutierrez’s future.
While the Mexican is backed significantly by Carlos Slim and has the support of the team’s technical partner Ferrari, his place for 2017 seems much less secure than that of his teammate Romain Grosjean.
"Frankly, it is clear that we expected more when we made the agreement with him," Steiner is quoted by the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat in Austin.
"While it is true that he has had a lot of bad luck, particularly early in the season, when Grosjean collected most of the points and he (Gutierrez) suffered from technical problems that were not his fault.
"However, we have also seen quite a few opportunities to grab points in the second half of the season. So we will give him a few more races to show what he can do," he added.
Turun Sanomat said Kevin Magnussen and Felipe Nasr are among the candidates to replace Gutierrez, while the Mexican’s future appears bleak because "Sauber is not interested in taking him back".