Former Haas team principal, Guenther Steiner played a huge role in helping the American outfit establish itself in F1, back in 2016, but his ambitions just did not end there. He wanted to make them a race-winning outfit and a team that could someday fight for championships.
However, in his opinion, team owner Gene Haas never shared the same vision. Steiner believes that the 72-year-old American is just happy for his team to compete in F1. So, with that kind of mentality, Steiner fears Haas “won’t achieve” anything.
“I don’t think he wants to become world champion. He just wants to participate,” was Steiner’s clear response when asked by GP Fans Global what he meant when he said that Gene did not do everything to become world champion. Steiner spent eight seasons at Haas before he was sacked at the end of the 2023 campaign and in this time, the team achieved a best finish of fifth in 2018.
The Italian-American revealed that he was delighted with the job he was doing at the start of his Haas stint as they built a strong foundation. However, with Gene not providing him with additional investment to make the team capable of better results, Steiner’s frustration naturally grew.
During Steiner’s final few seasons at Haas, reports also emerged that he had urged Gene to bolster the finances if he wanted his team to remain competitive but the American owner refused. However, Gene argued that the finances were never an issue and that the decision to sack Steiner was due to his failure to improve the team despite spending eight seasons at its helm.
| Guenther Steiner reveals why Gene Haas replaced him.
“I wanted to invest in the team, he didn’t.”https://t.co/Riex4rBvUX
— formularacers (@formularacers_) February 8, 2024
As a result, the Haas owner decided to replace Steiner with Ayao Komatsu. So far, Gene seems to have made the right decision as under the reins of the Japanese engineer, the team finished seventh last season.
Money is not the issue per Komatsu
Soon after Komatsu took over the reins, he revealed that Haas has everything it needs to succeed, and in the process also took a sly dig at Steiner. “Gene wants performance to increase and hates wasting money, something we have done in recent years,” the Japanese engineer said on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.
Komatsu criticized Steiner’s approach in selecting drivers, claiming that the Italian-American chose the likes of Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher because they brought money to the team, something which the team never needed.
“The team has to improve. It’s not that Gene [Haas] has no money. Ultimately, they just want to find a driver who is worth his money”, Komatsu said in another interview last year. Now, with Haas having signed the likes of Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman, Komatsu believes his team has the perfect mix of experience and youth to form a successful F1 operation.
Moreover, with Haas also partnering with Toyota, they could benefit by leveraging the resources and the technical knowledge of the Japanese manufacturer to become more competitive. Some of the things that Haas could benefit from are Toyota’s expertise in aerodynamic development, parts manufacturing and also carrying out simulator work.
Before signing their latest partnership with Toyota, Haas were using Ferrari’s simulator at Maranello as they did not have one of their own. But now, Toyota will provide Haas with their first simulator at their base in Banbury.
