Only two of Formula 1's 10 teams have now not changed team principal in the past two years, but Guenther Steiner's departure from Haas is particularly significant given his status in F1's new era; what led to the split and what's the challenge ahead for new chief Ayao Komatsu?
Thursday 11 January 2024 12:15, UK
He may have always insisted he had never actually watched an episode of Drive to Survive himself, but the cult following Guenther Steiner gained from his forthright and famously foul-mouthed appearances in Netflix's docuseries turned one F1's most affable team bosses into one of its most popular.
That relatively new-found status for a man who first joined the F1 world back in 2001 meant that news on Wednesday of the 58-year-old's sudden exit from his team principal position at Haas, the team which finished 10th out of 10 in last year's championship, was met with not only surprise but a fair deal of disappointment too.
Steiner may be the ninth different team boss to leave a role in the last two years - an unusually high statistic by F1 standards and which means only Red Bull's Christian Horner and Mercedes' Toto Wolff, the only chiefs whose tenures had been longer than Steiner's, were in their current roles as recently as the end of 2021 - but few have made as many waves as this.
"Formula 1 has lost a massive character, a very popular character, and someone who transcended the sport somewhat," said Sky Sports F1's David Croft.
"He was No 3 team principal behind Christian Horner and Toto Wolff [in terms of publicity and media exposure] and that's good for the sport that the fans want to associate themselves with a team like Haas because they really like what Guenther stands for.
"That's the underdog and taking it to the big boys."
Steiner's popularly stretched to the release of a successful book, Surviving to Drive, last year and a planned executive producer role on a workplace comedy being produced by American network CBS.
Damon Hill, the 1996 world champion and Sky Sports F1 pundit, added: "Fans liked him, he attracted people, he was controversial, he was outspoken but maybe didn't get the results that Gene Haas wanted."
In an era where team bosses, Wolff aside, are generally employees rather than shareholders of the outfits they represent, making them more vulnerable to football-style managerial departures than was the case in decades gone by, Steiner was nonetheless something of the public 'face' of Haas.
Yet, significantly, as Hill remarked: "You could say that it was his team - but he didn't own it."
For all of the achievements in helping launch Haas back in 2016, taking them to fifth in the championship two years later, and keeping them afloat during Covid, Steiner ultimately departs on the back of the second-worst season in the small US-owned team's eight-year history, a campaign in which they scored only 12 points despite the Ferrari-powered car featuring fairly regularly in the top-10 of qualifying.
Sky Sports News understands that it was ultimately differences of opinion between Steiner and Gene Haas, the American businessman who made his fortune in manufacturing before branching out into motorsport, first in NASCAR and then F1, over the vision for the future and the timing of fresh investment into the infrastructure at the team that lead to the Italian's contract not being renewed.
"Gene wanted to see the team moving in the proper direction before he would spend heavily again," reported Sky Sports News' Craig Slater, who added that the American remains fully committed to his team despite his long-time lieutenant's departure.
"Their performance on track last year might have been part of the picture as well," Croft added about the possible reasons for Steiner's departure.
"Great on a Saturday in terms of the way Nico Hulkenberg managed to get into the top 10 in qualifying, but part of the reason for their great qualifying performances undermined their performance on the track on a Sunday, so they would go backwards through the field. That, for an owner like Gene Haas, was probably not acceptable.
"Finishing bottom of the table, that is not what Gene Haas would want. So Guenther I think has paid the price for that."
So for the first time in their history, the Banbury-based team will begin an F1 season without Steiner, with Japanese engineer Ayao Komatsu now thrust into the front-facing team principal role.
Like Steiner, Komatsu has been with Haas from the very start, with the 47-year-old Loughborough-educated engineer having held the role of trackside engineering director since joining from Lotus, which is now Alpine.
"Ayo is going to have to work within his means," suggested Slater. "To put it in football parlance terms, he's going to have to be one of those managers that's got to coach with what he's got.
"In Haas' release [announcing the change of team boss] they spoke about the focus being on engineering, that's obviously where he comes from."
With the team also confirming they would be appointing a chief operating officer, whose management of all "non-competition matters" appears likely to include dealing with the media, Komatsu's primary focus is certainly going to be on operations and improving performance
Not that the challenge of breaking away from the back of the field is likely to get any easier in 2024.
"Do they go forwards?" pondered Croft. "I don't see how they do unless investment is made and that money is given to the team. They are not operating anywhere near the limits of the cost cap.
"You look at the teams around them. Sauber, they will become Audi in a couple of years' time. Williams have now got their house in order and risen now to seventh [in the standings] with the potential to go further.
"AlphaTauri are more closely aligning with Red Bull and moving their aero design base to Milton Keynes [from Italy] in a bid to get further up the grid.
"Haas are not doing the old adage 'if you stand still in Formula 1 you go backwards' - they are not even really standing still. They are just not investing and they have lost a real motivator and a leader of people in Guenther Steiner.
"I wish Ayao Komatsu all the best but can you honestly see a scenario at this moment that Haas aren't the team that will finish at the bottom the season?"
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