Gunther Steiner has left Haas following the expiry of his contract with the US-owned team, the Italian-American has been the team principal since the team entered F1 in 2016. Steiner has become famous in recent years through the Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive.
His direct and forthright personality, including copious amounts of swearing, attracted millions of fans, and led to a book, published last year, which became a best seller. It remains to be seen whether Haas will continue to be of interest to audiences and investors without Steiner’s personality at the helm. At team appearances, he often received bigger cheers than the drivers, Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen.
But perhaps his biggest achievement was steering Haas through the pandemic despite the controversy around one of it’s drivers Nikita Mazepin who partnered Mick Schumacher. The team had effectively run out of money Steiner brought Mazepin in, the son of Russian billionaire Dimitry Mazepin, as pay drivers to source those funds.
However, Mazepin’s on-track performances and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine led to his sacking weeks before the start of the 2022 season, after he and his father were sanctioned by many Western countries due to their closeness to President Vladimir Putin.
Also allegations of groping a woman and trying to ‘out’ Mercedes driver George Russell as gay, something unproven, both on Instagram, at the end of 2020.
Steiner has paid the price for the team’s failure to move up the grid in recent years. Gene Haas wanted to enter F1 to promote his machine-tools business, and Steiner set up the team with a plan to buy as many parts as possible from Ferrari.
Haas do the minimum required by the rules to be termed a constructor – a requirement of an F1 team – and design only the chassis and the car’s aerodynamic surfaces. Everything else, they buy in from Ferrari. The approach has proved cost-effective, but it limits a team’s ability to create their own design and solve their own problems.
Steiner worked in F1 long before Haas, first as managing director of Jaguar between 2001 and 2003, and during the early Red Bull years as technical operations director from 2005.
While Haas made a good start to F1 with eighth in 2016-17 and fifth in 2018 they have never managed to return to the midtable since. But perhaps Steiner is best known for his forthright views on Netflix’s Drive to Survive as his often flamboyant character was loved by the new audience that learned more about the sport.
However, results on the track were largely disappointing for Haas from 2019 and Steiner’s eight seasons in charge came to an end on Wednesday.
A statement said “We have had some successes, but we need to be consistent in delivering results that help us reach our wider goals as an organisation. We need to be efficient with the resources we have but improving our design and engineering capability is key to our success as a team. I’m looking forward to working with Ayao and fundamentally ensuring that we maximise our potential – this truly reflects my desire to compete properly in Formula 1.”
Haas has appointed Ayao Komatsu has been involved in motorsport since 2003, first with British American Racing (BAR), Renault and Lotus then Haas. He was Grosjean’s race engineer at Lotus during the Frenchman’s most successful years in F1 during 2012 and 2013.
He followed Grosjean to Haas in 2016 becoming his chief engineer, but the Japanese engineer will now take on all competition elements of the business as team principal including the team’s overall strategy and on-track performance.
It has also been announce a new role of European based chief operating officer will also be appointed to manage all non-competition matters and departments at Haas’ Banbury facility.
Komatsu added, “I’m naturally very excited to have the opportunity to be team principal at MoneyGram Haas F1 team. Having been with the team since its track debut back in 2016 I’m obviously passionately invested in its success in Formula 1. I’m looking forward to leading our program and the various competitive operations internally to ensure we can build a structure that produces improved on-track performances.”
Analysis
Steiner’s departure came as a bit of a surprise this afternoon, but I think Haas are trying something different trying to regularly be in the midfield and they haven’t managed through their first eight seasons to consistently be in that group. I think he does need some credit for keeping Haas going, when the entered F1 in 2016 all the teams which entered in 2010 had gone bust.
The Italian American I think did a good job early on, but they failed to move forwards in the last eight years, and this was his downfall. This is a big loss for the sport, but he wasn’t sacked but there could be a bit of power play between Steiner and Gene Haas because Steiner was a big character in the sport. His long-term future is a story to watch given he was a fan favourite
