Formula 1 team owner Gene Haas has stated that he has “no interest in being 10th anymore”, citing poor performance as a key contributor to Guenther Steiner’s exit as Team Principal.
Haas announced on Wednesday that Steiner was leaving the team after a decade of involvement, with former Trackside Engineering Director Ayao Komatsu to take the role.
After sacrificing development in the last year of F1’s previous ruleset (2021) to succeed with the current set of regulations, Haas found itself at the bottom of the standings in just the second year of the current ground effect era (2023) and the team’s owner is seeking a change in fortune.
In an exclusive interview with F1.com the American discussed why change needed to be made, his commitment to F1 and why he believes his approach will yield positive results.
“It came down to performance,” Haas explained. 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.
“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.”
After running a competitive car concept in 2022 which enabled Kevin Magnussen to score fine fifth place upon his return to the sport in the season-opener at Bahrain, Haas settled into a midfield battle throughout the first year of F1’s new ground effect regulations, ending the season eighth in the standings with a tally of 37 points.
But 2023 saw the team regress hugely, with strong showings in qualifying undermined by poor race performance that saw it score just one point in the last 17 grands prix.
An upgraded car spec introduced at the United States Grand Prix in Austin did little to prevent the slump and Haas finished dead last in the championship with 12 points.
Haas’ disinterest in finishing at the bottom of the F1 pecking order has sought him seek a new approach from within the team’s ranks in promoting Komatsu, who has been given the unenviable task of turning the team’s fortunes around.
Komatsu has 20 years of F1 engineering experience, working with BAR and then Renault before joining Haas at the start of its F1 competition in 2016.
Haas hopes Komatsu’s engineering focus will help drive the team forward, as he outlines the reasoning behind the appointment.
“We looked from within, at who had most experience,” Haas said. “Ayao has been with the team since day one, he knows the ins and outs of it.
“My biggest concern is when we go to Bahrain, we need to show up with a car that is ready to go.
“Maybe having more of a managerial-type and engineering approach, we’ll see if that has benefits.
“I think Guenther had more of a human-type approach to everything with people and the way he interacted with people, he was very good at that.
“Ayao is very technical, he looks at things based on statistics – this is what we’re doing bad, where can we do better.
“It’s a different approach. We really do need something different because we weren’t really doing that well.
“Like I said, it all comes down to eight years in, dead last. Nothing more I can say on that.”
F1 has seen a lot of change in the team boss role in recent years, with Aston Martin’s Mike Krack the third-longest serving despite only taking over at the start of 2022.
That means plenty of well-recognised personnel were at Haas’ disposal from the outside, such as Mattia Binotto, Otmar Szafnauer and Jost Capito.
But when interviewer Lawrence Barretto put those names to him, Haas responded by saying that he preferred to hire from within at this moment in time.
“I’ve been running Haas Automation for over 40 years now,” Haas issued.
“Bringing people in from the outside, it takes them time to learn, six months to a year, and a lot of time you don’t even like them.
“It’s better to take people you know, and even if they are not the perfect fit, at least you know what you’re going to get.
“That’s really worked out pretty well for us here at Haas Automation, so I’m really applying a lot of the building blocks that were here to the Formula 1 team.
“I really like to have people that I know, who understand the day-to-day operations, understand the people, [rather] than bringing in a stranger who is going to stir everything up and create a mess.”
There’s growing discourse surrounding Haas that part of the reason Steiner has left is down to investment.
It’s no secret that Haas is one of the most frugally run teams on the F1 grid and some believe that Steiner felt that needed to change in order to improve results.
One of the team’s problems going forward is that several other outfits toward the back of the F1 field are looking to invest to progress further up the grid.
Haas is also unconventional in the fact that its operation is spread out across three bases: Kannapolis, USA, Banbury, England and Maranello, Italy. Meanwhile, most teams operate out of one or two European-located bases at most.
Despite this, Haas is clearly focused on remaining consistent with his approach as an F1 team owner and Komatsu will be tasked with succeeding with the ingredients handed to him, but should the team’s budget-conscious approach fail to yield results in the coming years, should Haas sell up and make way?
Some believe the time for that has already come, with Andretti knocking at the door to become an eleventh F1 team after attempts at buying out a pre-existing competitor were rebuffed.
Haas is adamant, however, that he is here to stay.
“I didn’t get into F1 to sell [the team],” he declared. “I did it because I wanted to race. Guenther had the same perspective.
“We’re not here to cash out, we want to race and be competitive.
“If you look at any team, historically, they have had a lot of good years and a lot of bad years.
“Surviving is one of the characteristics of getting better. As long as you can survive, you always have another year to prove your worthiness.
“This is a big change. Losing Guenther is going to cause the team to have to focus on other aspects.
“We will hopefully come out better for it.”
Haas added: “There is a perception we spend a lot less money; we’re usually within $10m of the budget limit.
“I just think we don’t do a very good job of spending that money.
“A lot of teams have had previous investments in their infrastructure, buildings, equipment and personnel.
“Our model was to outsource a lot of that. We spend a lot of money. We haven’t exceeded the cap but we’re pretty darn close to it.
“I just don’t think we’re doing a very good job of spending it in the most effective way.”
Haas believes that its efficient approach to spending money in the past has been key to its survival and will be key moving forward.
“Being efficient at what we do is going to make sure we survive in this series,” Haas elucidated.
“We’re one of the longest surviving teams, everyone else [other new teams] have had the tendency to spend all their money in the first few years and then they go out of business.
“We survived for eight years, and we’re not in a situation where we are going to go out of business. But I certainly want to be able to survive for the next 10 years.”
Part of that survival won’t include selling up a minority stake to outside investors, an approach taken up by Alpine and Aston Martin over the course of the last 12 months.
Haas doesn’t want this for his team, despite being subject to numerous approaches.
“We have had outside investors come in, and they want to talk to us,” he revealed. “They expect a 15% rate of return every year.
“Give me a 15% rate of return and I have a couple of hundred million dollars I’ll give you!
“They have high expectations, they have all kinds of rules.
“What their job is, they want to buy into you, and five years later they want to make a $100m profit.
“Quite frankly, I don’t need that kind of oversight, from people who come in with $200m – it’s not enough to entice me to do that.”
When it comes to financial backing, Steiner’s exit leaves a large pair of shoes to fill, not just from a leadership point of view but also from an identity point of view.
In recent years, Steiner has become a leading personality on Netflix’s Drive to Survive docuseries with his strong character becoming a hit with viewers and a marketer’s dream.
This has helped keep Haas relevant and no doubt played a part in attracting sponsors such as title partner MoneyGram, but Steiner’s departure means that results will now have a huge part to play in continuing to attract sponsorship.
Results, it would appear, is Haas’ main focus for attracting sponsors, stating: “We [Haas] need to do better” and “It’s easier to keep sponsors and attract sponsors if we’re a mid-pack team and not a dead last team.
“That’s my perspective on it,” he added.
“At the same time, if we can run a little faster, we’ll get more FOM [Formula One Management] money, which will make life a bit easier.”
“It’s really all about winning. We have a great team, we have great engines, we have really great drivers.
“There’s no reason why we are 10th. I can’t understand how we can be with all the equipment and people we have.”
The cornerstone of the Haas approach to F1 is sourcing as many third-party components as is permitted within the rules.
The net result of this approach has seen Haas closely entwined with Ferrari, with the team operating a department with Ferrari personnel in Maranello and using as many parts in the production of its car from the Ferrari stable that is considered legal: engine, gearbox, suspension, etc.
Haas believes that the product of his team’s relationship with Ferrari should see it sit higher up the grid and considers anything less to practically be a failure.
“Ferrari has been very good to us,” Haas said. “They have been with us since day one, they build incredible engines.
“Their suspension is extremely good. We have been using a lot of their hardware.
“It works really well. They really do help us.
“I’m embarrassed that we haven’t been able to do better with it but going forward, I want to take advantage of good equipment that a lot of other teams don’t have.
“Things are going to get a lot more competitive. Red Bull have AlphaTauri, we’re starting to see these relationships evolve, and I think the competition is going to be very intense, so having a partner like Ferrari is going to be very important.”
“We’re very happy to stay with Ferrari. I hope we can help them in terms of reliability.
“Going forward, when Sauber drops Ferrari power, we would be Ferrari’s only user.
“They might want to pick up a customer or two. Maybe they’ll be happy with us. But we have got to do better.
“We can’t be running so far behind Ferrari. We need to be closer to them.”
Those from the outside looking in may be critical of the American’s view on F1 ownership, some may say it limits Haas’ ability to improve and that it is forever damned to sit toward the back of the field.
But for now, the only change he is making is that of the team principal.
Komatsu’s brief is to make do with what he has in front of him – which Haas believes is more than enough to achieve success.
“I think we’ve actually got a great formula here,” he concluded.
“We have Ferrari engines which probably have more power than anybody right now.
“We have Ferrari hardware [as per the permitted listed parts within the regulations], we have a good chassis.
“I talk to a lot of the engineers and I think our biggest failing is aero; our aero programme needs work.
“When you’re at the track and you’re humiliated every weekend, I’m going to stop taking that one anymore.”
