In the meantime, it has been over a year ago that Günther Steiner had to take his hat at the Formula 1 racing team Haas. Now the TV expert has looked back at the US team and revealed what frustrated him at the time.
Günther Steiner was team boss of Haas in Formula 1 for eight years, led the racing team of the American entrepreneur Gene Haas from the 2016 debut season until his discharge in early 2024. The best placement won Haas with Steiner in 2018 when the team in the designer World Cup came in fifth place.
And if it had gone to Steiner, Haas could have even had even higher ambitions. But as the South Tyrolean now reveals in an interview with “gpblog.com”, team owner was very different.
“I do things to progress to have success,” said Steiner himself. His former team “always strained to exist in Formula 1”, even if the placement was not always the best in the end .
Steiner also referred to Haas’s homemade competitive disadvantage. “You know you can’t get first or second because you just don’t have the right infrastructure like the other teams.”
Apparently Steiner would have liked to have better conditions to advance the team in the premier class of motorsport. “It is frustrating when trying to make a plan when trying to develop a plan and the owner does not listen to you,” said Steiner about Gene Haas,
Steiner: Time at Haas at the end frustrating
Of course he has “the right not to listen, that’s okay, he is the owner. I am not the owner,” continued Steiner.
“But that’s frustrating and I’m not a good frustrated person,” the South Tyrolean was annoyed. He was “not just happy to have a job,” he emphasized. He wants to “have success with everything I do. I want to be as good as I can.” So he always thought and also worked “to get to the head of sport”.
Haas, on the other hand, was “obviously happy when we became sixth, seventh, eighth or ninth”.
Under Steiner’s aegis, the Haas team drove a eighth place in years after the fifth World Cup, two ninth ranks and two places at the back.
Steiner no longer liked the crabs around the worst racing stalls, he had higher ambitions, which would lead to problems with genes Haas and in the end probably also led to separation in early 2024.
“I don’t think he wants to be world champion,” said Steiner about Gene Haas. “He just wants to participate.”
Former Steiner colleague Ayao Komatsu has been the new team boss of Haas since the 2024 season.