Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner Shockingly Leaves His Position

Wednesday, 10 January 2024 at 18:49

Guenther Steiner won't lead Haas as Team Principal during the 2024 Formula One season after he was suddenly replaced during the off-season.

For the past few F1 seasons, Haas has struggled to keep pace with their closest rivals in the sport, as they finished better than eighth in the World Constructors Championship only once in the past eight seasons.

Last year, the team finished the last, 10th, in the Championship again, and even though they were not far from their closest rivals Alfa Romeo, the American team was far behind everyone on the grid.

The main problem seemed to be the race results, as Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg often managed to qualify high and make it to Q3, but after that, they usually fell down the order.

The team's best result in 2023 was Hulkenberg's seventh place at the Australian Grand Prix, which eight cars did not finish, and a 5-second time penalty sent Carlos Sainz from fourth to 12th place.

However, even other drivers on the grid identified that drivers were not the problem, and it seems that Gene Haas, owner of the team, identified this problem.

As announced in a statement on their official website, Steiner "departed the organization with immediate effect." What raised eyebrows of some of the pundits was the fact that the official statement didn't include any word from Steiner himself.

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"I’d like to start by extending my thanks to Guenther Steiner for all his hard work over the past decade and I wish him well for the future."

After Steiner's departure, team already found a replacement for the Team Principal chair. Ayao Komatsu will replace Steiner, and Haas seems to be hoping that the change will "improve" team's performances on the race track.

"Moving forward as an organization it was clear we need to improve our on-track performances. In appointing Ayao Komatsu as Team Principal we fundamentally have engineering at the heart of our management."

One of the team's drivers, Kevin Magnussen, reacted to the news on X (formerly Twitter), thanking Steiner for their joint journey.

"Thanks, Günther. Thanks for taking me on the journey in 2017 and thanks for bringing me on board again in 2022. It has been both fun and tremendously challenging – but never boring. So long and all the best."