Former team boss Guenther Steiner, reflecting on his time in F1, admits that in hindsight he “stayed at Haas too long”.
Steiner, a key player in bringing Haas to F1 in 2016, departed the US outfit after a challenging 2023 season in which the team finished last in the Constructors' Championship for the second time in three years.
The Italian’s outspoken personality – a trait that especially came to light in F1’s popular Netflix docu-series Drive to Survive – made him a favorite among the sport’s fans and the media.
But in light of his team’s mediocre results, eponymous team owner Gene Haas considered that it was time for a change.
Ahead of the 2024 season, the American duly promoted trackside engineering director Ayao Komatsu to team principal, leaving Steiner out of a job.
Now, writing his first column for Formula1.com after a winter of contemplation, Steiner suggested he progressively felt a sense of frustration at being stuck in a team unable to fulfill his ambitions for consistent front-running success.
"Life has been good since I left Haas ahead of this season," he wrote. "These last few weeks are the first time I’ve switched off from F1 for around a decade. This time has been good for me.
"The longer time goes on, the more I can see that I stayed at Haas too long.
"When you step away, you get clarity – and you can see what you need to do. While you’re there, you’re in denial, you think you can do it but you cannot."
Steiner's column wasn't just about regretting his tenure’s length; it delved into the frustrations that led him to that realization. He described Haas’ constant struggles for minor points finishes as a soul-crushing slog, and the team's early promise only amplified this feeling.
The US outfit hit the ground running when it joined the fray in Australia in 2016, with Frenchman Romain Grosjean finishing sixth in Melbourne, a performance followed up by an even better fifth-place finish in Bahrain two weeks later.
But save for Grosjean’s P4 in Austria in 2018, that was as good as it got for Haas. Perennially stuck in the midfield, starved of podium contention, Haas lingered and Steiner's passion began to dwindle.
"With what we had, you could still fight for being seventh, eighth or ninth – but you couldn’t fight for podiums without the same weapons as the other guys", he added.
"Doing that in the long-term is not what I want to do in life. I don’t want to be seventh again. I’ve done that. I want to be able to fight, to battle at the front.
"When Toto Wolff started with Mercedes, the team at the time was not at the top. Yes, they had the advantage of the engine at the beginning, but he set everything up right to be successful in the mid-term – and they won eight constructors’ championships.
"It’s the same thing with Red Bull. How long did it take for them to get there? Every year, they kept on getting better. You need that patience and long-term planning."
Would Steiner pass on an offer to return to a management role in F1 if the circumstances were right?
"I would come back to F1 in the future, but it needs to be the right project, done right,” he said.
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