11 January 2024 , 15:38
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Gene Haas insists the decision to sack Guenther Steiner was not personal - but went on to say he has been left "embarrassed" by his Formula 1 team's results.
American businessman Haas has lent his name to and bankrolled the team for the last decade. But it was very much Steiner's baby - he was the one who approached the 71-year-old with the idea of setting up the team.
And he led as team principal for a decade, until Wednesday when it was announced that he had been removed from that position. Ayao Komatsu, the team's director of engineering, has been promoted to replace him.
In his quotes included in the press release from the team, Haas made it clear that performance is the driving force behind his decision. And he reiterated that as he spoke to the official F1 website about his big decision.
"I like Guenther, he's a really nice person, a really good personality," he said. "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.
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"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."
One key contribution made by Steiner was the use of his relationship with Ferrari to form a close bond between the two teams which still exists today, and which Haas says he will continue to uphold. He added: "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."
And he also explained the decision to promote Komatsu, 47, into the team principal role despite his lack of experience of leading a Grand Prix team. He said of the Japanese engineer: "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."