Günther Steiner’s grim suspicion: has Gene Haas lost interest?

When Günther Steiner joined Formula 1 with the Haas team, it was clear to the team principal that the challenge he and his team would have to overcome was enormous. The ambitions were clear: he wanted to take Gene Haas’s US racing team to the top of the premier class and compete for podium places and victories.

It didn’t take long for the first successes to materialise. At the very first Grand Prix, in Australia in 2016, Romain Grosjean finished sixth and scored points. The next milestone came at the following Grand Prix in Bahrain: the Geneva-born driver crossed the finish line in fifth place, securing Gene Haas’s team its first top-five finish. The team finished its first year in eighth place, and had to settle for eighth in the standings again the following season.

Highlight of the third Formula 1 season

It was not until the third year that the long-awaited improvement in performance materialised. Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen scored 93 championship points, securing fifth place in the championship for the Haas team. This remains the US team’s best-ever championship finish to date.

Steiner remained at the helm of the team for a further five years, after which his contract was not renewed. Instead, Ayao Komatsu was promoted to team principal. Under the Japanese manager’s leadership, the team finished seventh in the World Championship in 2024, eighth the following year, and once again in seventh place last season.

The fact that performance seems to be stagnating leads Steiner to voice a grim suspicion. He says on the ‘High Performance Podcast’: ‘You need to have Gene Haas on this podcast and ask him what he wants to achieve with the team, because I still haven’t understood that. If you’re competing in a sport, then to me that means you have the ambition to be a winner. That’s my goal.”

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Günther Steiner emphasises: Just taking part isn’t everything

“Of course, only one person can win – I realise that – but you have to give it your all, not just be content with being there and being allowed to take part. It’s the same in life, isn’t it? You don’t just want to take part; you want it to be part of your life and to have fun,” continues the 61-year-old.

And Steiner recalls: “At the start, there was a clear plan. It’s difficult to get into Formula 1 and stay there, as you can now see with Cadillac. It’s not easy. We were successful quite early on, and then we had a few bad years too, but that’s normal in any sport – you can’t just have good years.”

Speaking about his former boss Haas, the former team principal says: “You’re up against the best of the best, and I don’t know – perhaps at some point he simply lost interest in the sport. Perhaps he thought things should have turned out differently, and the relationship simply deteriorated over time, I’d say.”