Haas explains reasons for split with Steiner

Gene Haas has cited on-track performance as the main reason Guenther Steiner lost his position as team principal at the Haas Formula One team this week.

The shock news was announced on Wednesday and means 2024 will be the first season for the Haas team without Steiner in charge.

“It came down to performance,” Haas told Formula One’s official website when asked why Steiner’s contract wasn’t renewed. “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.

“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 finished tenth in the constructors’ standings in 2023 — the second time in three years it has placed last in the championship and a drop from eighth in 2022. The result means it will lose roughly $20 million in prize money compared to last year.

“We need to do better,” Haas added. “It’s easier to keep sponsors and attract sponsors if we’re a mid-pack team and not a dead last team. That’s my perspective on it.

“At the same time, if we can run a little faster, we’ll get more FOM [Formula One Management prize] money, which will make life a bit easier. “It’s really all about winning. We have a great team, we have great engines, we have really great drivers. There’s no reason why we are 10th. I can’t understand how we can be with all the equipment and people we have.”

Haas is unusual among teams in Formula One in that it takes as many components as it is allowed to under the regulations from Ferrari rather than build them itself. The team is still responsible for the design of its chassis and aerodynamic surfaces, and it is the latter where Haas believes his team has its biggest weakness.

“I think we’ve actually got a great formula here,” he continued. “We have Ferrari engines which probably have more power than anybody right now. We have Ferrari hardware [as per the permitted listed parts within the regulations], we have a good chassis.

“I talk to a lot of the engineers and I think our biggest failing is aero; our aero programme needs work. When you’re at the track and you’re humiliated every weekend, I’m going to stop taking that one anymore.”

Haas’ former director of engineering, Ayao Komatsu, will replace Steiner as team principal with immediate effect. Despite a number of former team principals out of work at the moment — including ex-Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto and ex-Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer — Haas said he wanted to promote from within the team as he has done previously with his machine tools operation, Haas Automation.

“I’ve been running Haas Automation for over 40 years now,” he added. “Bringing people in from the outside, it takes them time to learn, six months to a year, and a lot of time you don’t even like them.

“It’s better to take people you know, and even if they are not the perfect fit, at least you know what you’re going to get.

“That’s really worked out pretty well for us here at Haas Automation, so I’m really applying a lot of the building blocks that were here to the Formula 1 team.

“I really like to have people that I know, who understand the day-to-day operations, understand the people, [rather] than bringing in a stranger who is going to stir everything up and create a mess.”