Gene Haas happy to delay 2017 driver decisions until end of season

While Haas is understood to have agreed a deal to retain lead driver Romain Grosjean for its second season, its other seat - currently occupied by Esteban Gutierrez - remains up for grabs.

"I don't think we've made any hard decisions," Haas told reporters ahead of his team's home grand prix at Austin.

"We're happy with our drivers as they are, but we're still evaluating everything and there's no advantage for us to say exactly who we may or may not have drive in 2017.

"We just keep evaluating, and every week we have a little bit more information.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we wait until the end of the season to make a decision.

"You never know who might become available that might change our perspective, so there's no big advantage to announcing our line-up sooner."

Haas revealed Gutierrez as one of its 2016 drivers at last year's Mexican Grand Prix, but he said a repeat of that announcement is unlikely when F1 returns to Mexico next week.

However, he added the Mexican's failure to score a point so far this season will not be the overriding factor in deciding his fate.

"We've not excluded Esteban or anything like that," he said.

"He is our current driver and we're happy - there's four more races to bring in more information to decide what we want to do.

"Every race is important, and every race has a story to tell. We just want to evaluate things."

Haas added signing an inexperienced American driver remains "too big a risk", and on the subject of the team's home race he hopes expectations can be kept in check.

"I try to downplay expectations because it seems there are a lot of people expecting big things here," he said.

"In racing it's better to convince people to under-expect and then over-produce.

"I'm nervous about how hard people will be on us if we don't produce something.

"Other than that it's good to be in the US, and I hope we have a successful show here."