"He's quite dictatorial and Helmut Marko-ish": Peter Windsor compares former Haas team principal's management style to Red Bull's chief advisor

F1 pundit Peter Windsor has compared Guenther Steiner to Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko, saying he never really thought the former Haas team principal would be great at "managing drivers."

Steiner was let go by the American team a couple of weeks ago after serving as their team principal for 10 years in the sport. Fans and people in the F1 paddock were surprised that team owner Gene Haas did not renew the Italian-American's contract.

While appearing on Cameron F1's YouTube channel, Peter Windsor claimed that Steiner's management style resembled Marko's 'dictatorial' regime at Red Bull, saying:

"I never in my mind thought of Guenther as a guy who would be particularly good at managing drivers and getting the best from drivers as he's quite dictatorial and Helmut Marko-ish if that's the right word in the way he runs drivers."

"I think we saw that with Mick Schumacher as I don't think he got the best out of Mick and his driving probably suffered as he made quite a lot of mistakes under pressure than he should have and I don't think he's got the best from Kevin Magnussen."

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Red Bull advisor on choosing Max Verstappen over Carlos Sainz

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko recently said that they had to choose between Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz whilst they were teammates at Toro Rosso in 2015.

Speaking to Marca, the Austrian spoke about Sainz's abilities and claimed that he was on par with Verstappen during their time together. He said:

“Sainz is, without a doubt, a great driver. He was almost on par with Max in the Toro Rosso. The bad thing for him is that he was unlucky to have Verstappen as a team-mate. The atmosphere between the two in the team was quite toxic."

"The way the team was set up at the time, I didn’t see a way to keep him with us, so Carlos went to Renault, to McLaren, and then ended up at Ferrari. Sainz was almost at the same level as Verstappen… almost, but when we had to choose between Max and Carlos, it was clear what we had to do.”

It would have been fascinating to see if Carlos Sainz would have enjoyed the same success as Verstappen at Red Bull. Were Marko and Red Bull hierarchy correct in choosing the Dutch driver over his Spanish counterpart in the 2016 season?