Italian Günther Steiner is no longer the director of the Haas team, after ten years as “Team Principal”, the American Formula 1 team announced on Wednesday.
The charismatic 58-year-old Italian had to leave his position “with immediate effect”, we can read in the press release, replaced by the director of engineering of Haas, the Japanese Ayao Komatsu.
“I would like to start by thanking Günther Steiner for his hard work over the past ten years and wish him good luck for the future,” said Gene Haas, quoted in the press release and owner of the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team. “As an organization, it was clear that we needed to improve our performance on the track. By appointing Ayao Komatsu as Team Principal, we have fundamentally placed engineering at the heart of our management,” specifies the American multi-millionaire.
A few weeks before the start of the 2024 F1 season, the announcement of Steiner’s departure took everyone by surprise, yet it reflects the results of last season: the Haas team finished 10th and last place in the manufacturer’s championship in 2023.
Steiner had been in office since the American team’s debut on the grid in 2016, he had even contributed to its creation alongside Gene Haas from the world of NASCAR. After a career in the WRC, Steiner caught the eye of world champion Niki Lauda who recruited him for Jaguar in F1, before he worked for the RedBull group then Haas.
He gained notoriety with the hit Netflix Formula 1 series “Drive to survive”, broadcast since 2019. F1 resumes with pre-season testing in Bahrain on February 21 and 22 before the weekend of the 1st Grand Prix of the year on the same circuit, from February 29 to March 2.
