Guenther Steiner says he's glad he left Haas and takes fresh swipe at owner

15 March 2024 , 13:17

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Guenther Steiner left Haas in the winter after his contract was not renewed (Image: Getty Images)

Guenther Steiner declared "life has been good" since he left Haas and now feels he stayed with the team "for too long".

Steiner led the team from its inception and spent a decade as team principal. But, despite some successes, he was unable to push the team further up the Formula 1 pecking order with any sort of permanence.

At the end of last season, after the team finished bottom in the constructors' championship for the second time in three years, owner Gene Haas chose to go in a different direction. Steiner's contract was not renewed and his departure was announced in January.

He was replaced by former lieutenant Ayao Komatsu, who was promoted from director of engineering. Meanwhile, Steiner has agreed a deal to work with TV channels in the USA and Australia on their F1 coverage and is working on his second book.

He has also landed a new column with the official F1 website. His first post went live on Friday, in which he spoke about how much he is enjoying no longer being in charge of his old team.

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"Life has been good since I left Haas ahead of this season," he wrote. "These last few weeks are the first time I've switched off from F1 for around a decade. This time has been good for me. The longer time goes on, the more I can see that I stayed at Haas too long.

"When you step away, you get clarity - and you can see what you need to do. While you're there, you're in denial, you think you can do it but you cannot."

He also did not waste the chance to remind people of his belief that he was never given the resources required to live up to the owner's ambition for the team. Steiner added: "When I was there, with what we had, you could still fight for being seventh, eighth or ninth - but you couldn’t fight for podiums without the same weapons as the other guys.

"Doing that in the long-term is not what I want to do in life. I don't want to be seventh again. I've done that. I want to be able to fight, to battle at the front. When Toto Wolff started with Mercedes, the team at the time was not at the top. Yes, they had the advantage of the engine at the beginning, but he set everything up right to be successful in the mid-term - and they won eight constructors' championships.

"It's the same thing with Red Bull. How long did it take for them to get there? Every year, they kept on getting better. You need that patience and long-term planning. I would come back to F1 in the future, but it needs to be the right project, done right."

Daniel Moxon