I was checking my Twitter feed this morning and someone posted that the Haas F1 Team website did not list Günther Steiner anywhere. Well, this immediately set off a wave of speculation. About an hour later, the news came out; Haas had dropped it’s original Team Principal. F1 Twitter went into overdrive on this news, it was THE topic of conversation.
Credit: Dorian Schuster
Copyright: CC BY-SA 4.0
I’m sure more details will follow but right now, I want to discuss why this wasn’t a big surprise to me. It really comes down to this; there’s a time and place for a given type of leader, Steiner’s time had come. He was instrumental in getting the Haas team setup in the first place. It was because of his contacts and knowledge that enabled the team to enter F1 on a very modest budget and small footprint. Steiner was able to bring Ferrari and Dallara in as suppliers, which reduced startup costs. He was also able to obtain equipment and facilities at a reduced price through his experience and contacts. In other words, he was a great manager for a start-up operation. Gene Haas was wise to select him for this role at that time.
For a while it worked-out fairly well too. The team was decent and could be competitive from time to time. They even scored 5th in the Constructors’ Championship in 2018, which was an impressive feat for the newest team on the grid at the time. Over the last few seasons though, the team has become less competitive and has slipped down the order. Their business model is also showing it’s limitations in the current operating environment. Couple that meager development and associated upgrades over the past several years and you have a team in the doldrums.
At this stage in their evolution, Haas needs somebody who can take them forward. Somebody who has the skills and personality to take what they have and add to it. Think of where McLaren and Williams have been recently and what they did. After the debacle of the Honda partnership, McLaren brought in Zak Brown to run the team and Andrea Stella to manage the race team. After a steady decline accompanied by some bad hiring choices, Williams brought in James Vowles as Team Principal and Pat Fry as Technical Director after Dorilton Capital bought the team. Both are improving significantly with McLaren looking very competitive since last summer.
Granted, both of those teams have been around for decades but they had fallen towards the back of the grid and had to improve. Also, if you look at Steiner’s previous employer (Red Bull Racing) they had to do likewise after they purchased Jaguar from Ford and needed to build the team into a competitive outfit. It takes a while to put all the pieces in place to become more competitive, and if a team wants to be successful it has to find the right person to do the job.
All this to say that given where Haas are now, Steiner needed to go. He had reached his limit, meaning that the team had reached it’s limit too. Therefore, I wasn’t too surprised to hear the news because Haas needs to do something lest it remain mired in the back of the pack. With Audi entering F1 as part of Sauber in 2026 and with Honda teaming up with Aston-Martin around the same time, Haas will face even greater competition.
Oh, and this is assuming that Andretti Global does not join as the eleventh team with GM as their long-term partner. If they do, the grid will be full of strong and well-backed teams front to back. This will make it even harder for Haas to be competitive going forward.
So it will be interesting to see what Haas does next. They moved Ayao Komatsu from within to fill the role as Team Principal, whether this is only an interim promotion or a long-term role remains to be seen. Some have even speculated that Haas may sell the team if the right buyer comes along with an attractive offer. All this remains to be seen but it appears to me that the team is floundering and needs to make major changes. If nothing else, there will be additional developments at Haas in 2024 as the future direction of the team comes into focus. I’ll discuss more about Haas in the near future so be on the lookout for those posts in due course.
