Guenther Steiner has “no regrets” after Haas dismissal

Steiner was replaced by Ayao Komatsu, a 'lifer' at Haas who had most recently served as Director of Engineering prior to his promotion. The 47-year-old Japanese joined the team from its inception in 2016 as race engineer to Romain Grosjean.

In an exclusive interview, Steiner concedes he is now "very chilled out, just looking at the future in a different way than I did when I was in the hamster wheel."

Whilst there has not been "a concrete offer" to return to a role in F1, he is receiving numerous other offers to look at F1 from his very unique, no-punches-pulled perspective that became such a hit on the Netflix: Drive to Survive series.

The 58-year-old will at least be heading Down Under in March, initially to play a role in the Adelaide Motorsport Festival the week before the Australian Grand Prix at which he will work as a key figure in the coverage for a television station.

Life is good for Steiner who claims “a big weight has been lifted off his shoulders” now he is no longer in charge at Haas.

"What happened is done," said Steiner. "People now think that it must be nice doing nothing – I wish I was doing nothing – but I've plenty of stuff to do, which is keeping me busy.

"And it's a nice thing to wake up in your bed consistently, not just being home for two days and then I have to go again. It's nice being around the family. When you're on the run, as I call it, you don't realise how much they actually miss you until you're around.

"At the moment there are requests for appearances, television, but I need to understand all this business, and I'm open for anything. Anything can happen in the future. There are a lot of people asking if I'm available to do things for them, which is actually pretty good. You actually see there is a world in F1, outside of the team world, the big world.

"For me, when I was in a team, you don't realise how much is going on, except the team, so I'm learning about that business at the moment because I'm completely ignorant about it, to be honest. I'm just seeing what is out there and then I'm going to decide on what to do next."

Steiner is adamant that for now he is "not in a hurry" to again be a Team Principal, adding: "As I said, there are plenty of things going on at the moment, and I'll be going to Australia without the pleasure of going racing.

"I've always said Australia is my favourite GP, and it is, it's a nice place to go. And now I'll take my wife with me, we will go there for ten days, giving over a bit of time for us, which is pretty cool, and doing some work as well, and I'll see if I enjoy it or not."

It is hard to imagine F1 without Steiner this year, with his flamboyant, no-nonsense character a staple of the paddock. After a season in which his team finished bottom of the constructors' championship for the second time in three years, Haas clearly decided it was time for a change, to freshen things up.

In many respects, it was a harsh decision on Steiner who, given the limited resources of the team, was effectively doing the work of three people, as it was once described to me, compared to his peers. Ironically, Haas is to take some of the workload off Komatsu with the appointment of a Chief Operating Officer.

From Steiner's perspective, despite time passing and the rawness of Haas' decision no longer stinging as it obviously did initially, he remains at a loss to understand Haas' thinking. "No, I don't understand it," said the Italian. "But he can do what he wants.

"I understand that. I respect that. I would never do that, and that was my opinion, because for me, it's a way to nowhere, but in the end, I need to respect that he owns the team, not me, so who am I to tell him what to do? He can do what he wants, and I'll do what I want. As simple as this. Life is like this, and I can live with my choices."

In general, there is no bitterness from Steiner because at the end of the day, his decade in charge, and the eight years racing in F1 ultimately delivered "a fantastic time".

"I went out there with a dream to establish a new Formula 1 team," he said. "I went around with a business plan, I found Gene Haas – he didn't take me along, I took him along – so it was an exciting time.

"I still haven't realised what was actually done there in the ten years, but it was not only about me. There were a lot of people who worked there and did a fantastic job. Some of them are still there, which is also a great achievement, people staying more than ten years with one company.

"Looking back there were highs and your lows, but that's the same everywhere with what you do, but in general, the highs were more than the lows."

Amongst the highs were seeing the team's cars take to the Barcelona Circuit de Catalunya for pre-season testing in 2016, going against the grain of the critics' forecasts by scoring points on debut, taking their first double-points finish in Monaco the year after, and then finishing fourth and fifth at the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix en route to fifth in the constructors' standings. Of course, who could forget the first pole at the 2021 São Paulo Grand Prix courtesy of Kevin Magnussen.

And then there were the lows, notably 2019 as Haas succumbed to deficiencies from its Ferrari power unit, then almost going out of business a year later when Covid kicked in before a wretched 2021 when the team failed to score a point.

Through it all, Steiner concedes he was "always (financially) constrained", understandable given the tight budget imposed by Haas. He naturally concedes that "hindsight is a beautiful thing", and with it, of course, he would have done things differently.

Overall, he maintains he does "not regret anything". He added: "There is not one thing I would say was completely wrong. There were a lot of little things, knowing now how they worked out. Obviously, now, l would do them different because then I could have the outcome I really wanted. But in general, I don't think there was any big mistake.

"You can always do things better, and I'm always honest. I know I could have done things better. I didn't do a fantastic job, but I did the right things at the time which were possible to do because there were a lot of constraints with what we were doing."

It is that refreshing honesty from Steiner that will be one of many things missed this season in a Formula 1 paddock that will be poorer for his absence.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.