Gene Haas has spoken out following the departure of long-serving team principal Guenther Steiner, claiming that he has ‘no interest’ in finishing at the bottom of the Constructors’ Championship standings anymore and that the team’s performance was the motivating factor behind the team principal’s dismissal.
Steiner had been with the team since they entered F1 back in 2016 with his personality central to both the team’s brand and wider appeal with a blossoming fanbase. His no-nonsense, X-rated approach to driver management and on-track incidents marked him out as one of the sport’s biggest characters.
This billing was reinforced when Netflix aired their hit docuseries ‘Drive to Survive’ for the first time in 2019. Haas featured heavily in the very first episode of the show and Steiner in particular became essentially the star of the show as the seasons progressed and interest from casual fans grew.
Steiner’s on-screen success solidified his position as a fan favourite and made him almost synonymous with Haas in the eyes of newer supporters. However, positive results on the track didn’t follow with the sport’s only American team finishing in the bottom two of the Constructors’ Championship standings four times in the past five seasons.
Speaking to F1.com after Steiner’s departure was announced, Haas explained: “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. 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.”
In Steiner’s place for the 2024 season will be Ayao Komatsu, who has been with the team since their arrival on the F1 grid in an engineering capacity. Haas is hoping that a more technical approach can help move his team back into the midfield fight.
“Ayao has been with the team since day one, he knows the ins and outs of it,” he continued. My biggest concern is when we go to Bahrain, we need to show up with a car that is ready to go. Maybe having more of a managerial-type and engineering approach, we’ll see if that has benefits.
“I think Guenther had more of a human-type approach to everything with people and the way he interacted with people, he was very good at that. Ayao is very technical, he looks at things based on statistics – this is what we’re doing bad, where can we do better.”
