After firing former team boss, Guenther Steiner, even before the 2024 season began, Haas also showed Kevin Magnussen the exit doors at the end of last season to field Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman for 2025 and beyond.
Team owner, Gene Haas has been rumored to make these decisions motivated by the financial side of things that go into running an F1 team. Whilst he did not agree with the future of the team with Steiner, getting rid of Magnussen for a rookie in Bearman was for obvious cost-cutting reasons.
Haas have remained the perennial underachievers of the grid. And there was a time in the history of the Kannapolis-based outfit that they used to turn up with the slowest car on the grid.
The 2020 season saw Haas finish a disappointing ninth in the standings with only three points to their name. Their driver lineup that year was of Romain Grosjean and Magnussen. However, Steiner decided to end their time with the team and in F1 altogether when he sacked the duo at the end of the season.
In their places, Haas opted to go for an all-rookie lineup of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin for the 2021 campaign. Looking back in hindsight, Steiner believes that his letting go of Grosjean and Magnussen was actually an act of kindness.
On BBC’s F1: Chequered Flag podcast, the 60-year-old revealed, “When I let Kevin and Romain go: on the telephone call, I told them actually, guys, you don’t want to be here next year, because this will be painful for you guys.”
BREAKING: Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean will leave @HaasF1Team at the end of the 2020 season#F1 pic.twitter.com/yWAwtB1kDD
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 22, 2020
This was because with the 2022 regulations reset about to take place, Haas had decided to put all their resources into developing that car which meant that the team did not bring any upgrades on the VF-21 and essentially abandoned it even before the season had started.
And Steiner‘s fears came true with them finishing plum last in the championship with zero points to their name that season as the car was an absolute backmarker, often finishing in the bottom five.
BBC’s Harry Benjamin quizzed him about if he feels like his sacking of Grosjean and Magnussen was a matter of showing a duty of care for a driver lineup that had served him for the better part of half a decade.
“At the time, they thought I just want to soften my speech, you know, just make me feel better about it. But years later, they said, Guenther, thank god we weren’t there in 21, because they could see it from outside,” he replied.
The all-rookie lineup did not work out too well, however. Mazepin was sacked after 2021, and Magnussen was given the call-up once again to join Steiner once again. Their alliance bore mixed results with Haas finishing eighth in 2022 and then slipping back to P10 the coming year — leading to Steiner’s sacking.
Life after F1 for Magnussen also seems pretty thriving. The Dane is currently a BMW factory driver in their WEC and IMSA operations in the Hypercar class.
