Steiner likens 'short term' team principals to soccer

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Guenther Steiner says that Formula 1 is becoming increasingly like top class soccer in the way that team managers are given only a short time - sometimes just weeks - to succeed before being shown the door and replaced by someone new.

Steiner's contract as team principal of Haas F1 was not renewed this month after eight years in charge of the US-based squad. He has been replaced by Ayao Komatsu, formerly the team's head of trackside engineering.

This year will also see a new face in charge at AlphaTauri with ex-Ferrari sporting director Laurent Mekies taking over the reins following the departure of Franz Tost at the end of 2023.

Bruno Famin has been in the role of interim team principal at Alpine since just last summer, and Andrea Stella, James Vowles and Frederic Vasseur took over at McLaren, Williams and Ferrari respectively at the start of last season.

By contrast, Christian Horner and Toto Wolff are the two longest-serving team principals on the grid, with Wolff having just signed a further three year extension to his current contract with Mercedes.

Read also: Marko exposes true reason for Steiner’s exit from Haas

Steiner said that the number of team principal changes in recent times, and the timing of them, suggested that team owners didn't really know how a moden motorsports squad works and what's involved.

“Some people which own the teams – corporates, individuals – they don’t really understand," he said, citing his own exit just a few weeks before the start of pre-season testing as an example.

"Looking at Bahrain this year, it’s pretty late," he offered. “You cannot change that anymore. What happens there, it’s done. The damage is done.

“You need to look what are the plans for 2026/2027 and people don’t want to hear that because everything is about the next result.

"It’s not like football where you change a few players and you can make a big difference. In Formula 1, you cannot do that.

"If people change and the vision of the teams don’t change, nothing will change. It’s not about the people anymore, it’s the vision. If you believe in them, you have to wait it out.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.