Reason For Steiner - Haas Separation Revealed By Team Owner Gene Haas
F1Thursday, 11 January 2024 at 13:00
The owner of the Haas Formula One team, Gene Haas, explained the reason behind Guenther Steiner's departure.
Yesterday, Haas announced a key figure would be departing the F1 team. Guenther Steiner is being replaced in his position of team principal by Ayao Komatsu with immediate effect.
The team principal has not been quoted in the official press release, which, according to Martin Brundle, suggested there was some friction within the team.
Many started asking questions about what could be the real reason behind Steiner's departure. The Haas's team owner, Gene Haas, answered this question a day after the announcement as he told Lawrence Barretto and Formula 1:
"It came down to performance. Here we are in our eighth year, over 160 races – we have never had a podium. The last couple of years, we’ve been 10th or ninth."
The American F1 team peaked in the year 2018 when they achieved their best result in the Championship - fifth place. Ever since, the team hasn't finished better than eighth.
"I’m not sitting here saying it’s Guenther’s fault, or anything like that, but it just seems like this was an appropriate time to make a change and try a different direction, because it doesn’t seem like continuing with what we had is really going to work."
Haas showed no signs of improvement or potential by finishing 10th, 8th, and 10th in the three most recent seasons, so the team owner decided to pull the trigger. Gene Haas explained he likes Steiner, but the results just weren't there.
"It is, I like Guenther, he’s a really nice person, a really good personality. We had a tough end to the year. I don’t understand that, I really don’t."
Haas didn't start the 2023 season as the worst team, but its promising upgrade that apparently cost the team owner $8 million completely failed, and the team just couldn't match its rivals at the end of the season. Many ask what happened, Gene Haas says that is for the former team principal to answer.
"Those are good questions to ask Guenther, what went wrong. At the end of the day, it’s about performance. I have no interest in being 10th anymore."
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