"Gene Haas got jealous, so he fired him": Fans react to Red Bull chief's recent claim about Guenther Steiner

F1 fans largely disagreed with Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko's claims about former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner's exit from the USA-based team. Some fans, however, concurred with Marko.

The Austrian mentioned that Steiner's popularity from the Netflix series Drive to Survive might have played a role in his departure from the only American team on the grid.

While speaking with the F1 Insider, the Red Bull advisor claimed that team owner Gene Haas did not like Guenther Steiner's popularity from the show:

“Let’s put it this way: Anyone who becomes too popular through a documentary like Netflix tends to take off. But if you fly too high too quickly, you will fall more quickly. All I heard was that he wanted to convert his popularity into shares in the team.

"And owner Gene Haas didn't like that anymore. It is also the case in our sport that the team always comes before the individual. Steiner became a victim of his popularity.”

F1 fans took to social media to give their reactions to the comments, with one fan claiming that Gene Haas got jealous and fired Guenther Steiner, saying:

"Gene Haas got jealous, so he fired him, what an absolutely horrible man."

Here are some more reactions:

Guenther Steiner speaks on his 'celebrity' status from the Netflix series

The former Haas team principal stated that he was unsure if his 'celebrity' status had anything to do with him losing his job.

Speaking with Craig Slater of Sky Sports, Guenther Steiner pointed out that he had no interest in being a celebrity and was focused on his job of leading an F1 team. He said:

"Not really, but thinking back now, it could have. But in the end that celebrity gave the team a lot of exposure, and brought in very good sponsors like MoneyGram because they liked that because they could use that [profile].

"These are things you cannot always plan for because I was not out there trying to look for celebrity. It happened to me and only the people who know me know that, so I'm ok with that."

He added:

"I didn't get up in the morning to be a celebrity. I get up in the morning to work. But I think it worked a lot in favor of the team because without that maybe it would have been closed before."

Gene Haas had earlier claimed that Steiner's departure from the team had nothing to do with him getting jealous or his celebrity status and it was solely down to the performance of the team.