"I’m not sitting here saying it’s Guenther’s fault": Gene Haas speaks out on firing Guenther Steiner from the American F1 team

Haas team owner Gene Haas has spoken out about firing Guenther Steiner, saying that the decision came down to performance.

The start of the season has been a wild one for the only American team on the grid. It started with news of the much respected Simone Resta leaving Haas over disagreements with the owner. Soon after, even the team principal, a much respected and well-known paddock figure in Steiner, was forced out of the team.

Haas has not had a great run in F1 recently. The team has finished at the bottom of the table in two of the last three seasons. Haas has been accused of a lack of understanding of the car put out on the track every season.

In 2019 and 2020, Haas seemingly weren't aware about the massive divergence in the qualifying and race pace of the car. In 2023 as well, the team failed to tame the car's characteristics. As it turned out, that proved to be the undoing for Steiner and he was given his marching orders by Gene Haas.

Talking to Lawrence Barretto of F1.com, Gene pointed to performance as the key factor behind Steiner's ouster.

“Here we are in our eighth year, over 160 races – we have never had a podium. The last couple of years, we’ve been 10th or ninth. I’m not sitting here saying it’s Guenther’s fault, or anything like that, but it just seems like this was an appropriate time to make a change and try a different direction, because it doesn’t seem like continuing with what we had is really going to work,” he said.

"I have no interest in being 10th anymore": Gene Haas

Gene Haas further delved into the team's poor season in 2023. The team owner feels there was a lot more that could have been done, and expressed confusion about why Haas struggled as much as it did in 2023 and finished last.

Declaring his intent, the American team owner said he had no interest in finishing last anymore in F1.

“It is, I like Guenther, he’s a really nice person, a really good personality. We had a tough end to the year. I don’t understand that, I really don’t. Those are good questions to ask Guenther, what went wrong. At the end of the day, it’s about performance. I have no interest in being 10th anymore,” he stated.

Steiner's departure has been a shock to many, as has the promotion of the technical head Ayo Kamatsu to the team principal role. The American team seems on sticky ground at the moment and it remains to be seen what it does in F1 this year.