Pink Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko believes long-standing Haas crew boss Guenther Steiner was “too standard” for his personal good, which finally led to his demise from the US outfit.
Steiner’s eight-year tenure in F1 with Haas got here to an abrupt halt over the Christmas vacation interval when eponymous crew proprietor Gene Haas declined to resume the Italian’s administration contract, a lot to the latter’s shock.
Haas invoked his crew’s dramatic lack of outcomes and dismal efficiency in 2023 as the primary justifications for Steiner’s exit and his substitute by the crew’s director of engineering Ayao Komatsu.
Whereas there isn’t any denying Haas’ mediocre 2023 marketing campaign and its poor outcomes, Marko recommended that there have been different causes at play that led to Steiner’s departure, causes linked to the Italian’s impromptu star standing acquired over a number of seasons of the acclaimed Netflix docuseries ‘Drive to Survive’, and upon which Haas could have seemed unfavourably, based on Marko.
“Let’s put it this manner: anybody who turns into too standard by way of a documentary like Netflix tends to take off. However if you happen to fly too excessive too shortly, you’ll fall extra shortly,” Marko defined.
“All I heard was that he needed to transform his recognition into shares within the crew. And proprietor Gene Haas did not like that.
“It is usually the case in our sport that the crew at all times comes earlier than the person. Steiner turned a sufferer of his recognition.”
©Haas
Former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone additionally chimed in on Steiner’s scenario, suggesting that the previous Haas chief’s recognition with the game’s followers was out of whack along with his deserves.
“There has by no means been a extra unsuccessful crew boss in System 1 who however turned a famous person because of a US documentary,” Ecclestone mentioned.
“In my day, when solely efficiency counted, that by no means occurred.”
Steiner’s former AlphaTauri counterpart, Franz Tost, who retired from F1 on the finish of 2023, believes that his colleague was made a simple goal by Haas.
“I obtained on very properly with Guenther, each personally and professionally,” he mentioned. “He was an professional on our sport. That is all I wish to say.
“The strain in System 1 is brutal. If an additional growth of a automotive would not work in the midst of the season, persons are searching for somebody guilty.”
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