Guenther Steiner offered a tongue-in-cheek response to Toto Wolff's criticism of Haas' treatment of Mick Schumacher.
The young German was dropped by Haas at the end of last year to make way for the experienced Nico Hulkenberg. The move came in the wake of a difficult second campaign in F1 for Schumacher, marked by two very heavy crashes – in Jeddah and in Monaco.
The 24-year-old was nevertheless picked up by Mercedes and assigned a reserve driver role with the team.
Speaking in Melbourne earlier this month, Wolff said that Haas "would not have dared treat" Schumacher the way it did had his legendary father been at his side during his two years with the US outfit.
In an interview with Sky Sports, Steiner responded to Wolff's criticism.
"What I have to say is, if my father would have been around, Toto wouldn’t have said the things he said," the Haas boss jokingly said.
"It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t easy to manage that one because there was a lot of pressure from outside because of his last name," he added more seriously.
"Then obviously he had the big crashes, which was very difficult to manage as well for the team because it was big damage. Which again you need to re-focus your budget on different things, as now with the budget cap you need to invest money in performance.
"It wasn’t easy, but racing is not easy and coming up for young guys in Formula 1 is very tough and nobody deserves to be in Formula 1, you need to perform."
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In Steiner's recently published book 'Surviving to Drive' that chronicles a year inside F1 with the Haas chief and Netflix breakout star, the Italian explains why the German media's criticism of his handling of Schumacher weighed on the latter's performance.
"I think they tried to put pressure on to keep Mick and blame all the team and I don’t think that was good for Mick," Steiner wrote.
"In the end, they didn’t actively try to divide us but that’s what they did. I think he didn’t feel good when he heard the things talked about me and I didn’t feel good coming from their side.
"In the end, they tried to divide us.
"This is not good for Mick, even if they try to do this because in the end the team decides who is going to drive the car and not the driver which car he is driving.
"There is no point to upset a team about a driver because you want to say ‘Guenther didn’t take care enough of Mick and how I do things’."
Steiner made it a point of outlining the clear responsibilities of team and driver.
"In the end, he scored points. Nobody says ‘that’s because Guenther managed Mick like this’, nobody came with that and I don’t expect that like I don’t expect to be blamed if he crashes.
"The driver has to do that himself to get the points and not to crash.
"The responsibility of the team is to give the driver the best car they can, and we always did that, and be fair to both drivers that they both get the same level of car, we always did that.
"And if we didn’t do that then we explained, for example, that an upgrade, only one part was available and you share it.
"We were very open about it, we never hid anything or gave an advantage to one or the other driver because that is a principle of my life – you need to treat people fairly to get the best out of it.
"In the end, who wants the drivers to perform at their best? Me and the team so why would I try to sabotage any of our drivers?
"In the end, this is part of a team principal life that some people don’t like what you’re doing. I don’t really care if somebody doesn’t like what I do.
"Just say it – it doesn’t do anything, I will not change because I don’t feel I need to change because of somebody who has not walked in the team."
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