Guenther Steiner: Haas 'not as privileged' as other F1 teams to be able to rotate staff between races

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner admits that he cannot afford to have a structure where team members are rotated during the 24-race season in 2023. Multiple team principals, including Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, admitted this season that they would be taking a few races off next season and working from the factory instead because the number and the travel involved are too high.

Haas' team principal does not think something like this is possible for a smaller team like his. The essential core group that executes race weekends is irreplaceable and will be on the track during race weekends for the 24-race weekend.

Even this season we saw Toto Wolff take a few races off and work from Brackley (the Mercedes HQ). Something similar was done by Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto as he focused his efforts on the 2023 F1 challenger.

The Haas team principal, in a recent interview on the Beyond the Grid Podcast, said revealed he was not as privileged as some of his counterparts as he said:

“I’m not as privileged as them, you know, I have to go to the races, actually – these are the rich people which can afford not to go because they’ve got so many people working for them. And to be honest, I don’t dislike to go to races. This is what I’m doing, what I like most."

It's one of the things I do like: Haas team principal

Steiner does, however, have no qualms about going into every race of the season as he feels that is one of the things that he loves about the sport. He said:

“Going racing, it’s one of the things I do like. I will go, hopefully, with 24 races you never know if you’re sick on one race or something – I hope I’m not – and I will go to all the races. It is a long season, but rotating the staff? We don’t have a plan to rotate continuously, proper, whole team. There will be a few positions will rotate in the team. But the main people, the mechanics and the engineers, will be always the same.”

While Haas might not be in a position to exercise the rotation of personnel, this might be something that we will see in the coming years as a 24-race calendar is going to be taxing for everyone involved. Could something like this, where personnel fatigue is an issue, become a differentiating factor in the competitiveness of the teams? It's worth keeping an eye on.