F1 News: F1 Pundit Highlights "Lobby" Within Haas That Was Against Guenther Steiner
Sky Sports' Craig Slater noted a discontented faction within the Haas F1 team was unhappy with Guenther Steiner's rise as the team's face, fuelled by his popularity from Netflix's Drive to Survive. This sentiment was accentuated by the team's poor performance in finishing last in the Constructors' Championship the previous year.
Despite the team's poor finish in 2023, the team members weren't expecting Steiner's exit, who had remained with the team since its inception in Formula 1. But last week, news rocked the F1 world that he had stepped down as team boss.
Steiner was replaced by Ayao Komatsu, the team's trackside engineering director. Slater feels that there was a faction within Haas that didn't like Steiner, a side that perceived the team to be a "Guenther Steiner show," given the attention he received.
Haas F1 Press Image
Speaking on the Sky F1 podcast, he said:
“There was a bit of a lobby within the Haas team.
“Those who weren’t so fond of Guenther Steiner who was casting this up.
“’Is this the Guenther Steiner show? Should we be doing all this while the team isn’t performing so well?’ And maybe that has had an effect on him ultimately being replaced.
“I think there are quite a lot of people there who are very disappointed Guenther has gone. Like everywhere, there’ll be people who are thinking ‘oh well, maybe I’m not so sure I like the guy who’s taking over so much.’
“And then there’ll be others who will think ‘no, I understand where Ayao [Komatsu] is coming from. This is a positive move for me.’ But I think yes, it’s going to take a little bit of getting used to all of this.”
The presenter also added that while team founder Gene Haas expected a better outcome last year, Steiner wanted the team to invest in better facilities to "move forward". He said:
“Guenther Steiner, I’ve been told, desperately wanted significant investment in the factory in Banbury and in the general infrastructure of the team.
“He thought they’d outgrown that facility and they needed to invest a bit more to move the team forward.
“Gene wanted to see progress on track before he would spend heavily again on fresh equipment and expansion of the infrastructure at that Banbury base.
“The Steiner way of mind was lamenting the fact that the facilities were way behind their competitors. Somebody said to me today ‘I had to block four engineers and I had to block four other staff members in to park my car today.’
“Well there’s little things like that if you’re looking to attract the best from Alpine or even Mercedes or others, they’re going to come around and say ‘what’s the operation here? What’s my workplace?'”
