Steiner: I stayed at Haas longer than I should have.

      Günther Steiner, who led the Haas team from 2016 to 2023, said in The High Performance podcast that he still does not understand why Gene Haas created the Formula 1 team.

      Günther Steiner: "To understand why Gene Haas even created this team, you need to ask him directly. I still haven't figured it out.

      For me, if you come into a sport and want to be competitive, the goal is always the same – to win. I fully understand that only one can win, but you must strive for the maximum, not just be happy with the mere fact of participating.

      At the beginning, we had a clear plan. Getting into Formula 1 is very difficult – the current situation with Cadillac shows this well. We achieved good results quite quickly, then there were unsuccessful seasons, like 2019. But that's normal in sports – it's impossible to perform well all the time, especially when competing with the best of the best.

      At some point, I don't know, maybe Gene lost interest in Formula 1 or decided that the team needed to be managed differently. Either way, over time our relationship began to deteriorate."

      Steiner added that he still regrets not leaving Haas earlier: "I think I stayed at Haas two years longer than I should have. I probably should have communicated my vision for the team's development to the owners differently.

      If we're talking about when I started losing interest in this job, it was probably at the end of 2022 or in 2023. I saw the direction other teams were moving in and understood what needed to be done to achieve success. But I couldn't convince the management of this. Maybe it's my fault, but I tried to explain what we needed to do if we wanted to succeed in the future.

      When someone is not working in Formula 1, it's hard to understand what it means to fight for points for seven or eight years. I've already gone through that path and wanted to get on the podium. But if you don't have the opportunity to fight for something more, then I don't want to do the same thing every year – at Haas, year after year, they fight for a few points.

      I spent ten years trying to earn points, finishing seventh, eighth, ninth, or tenth. At some point, you have to tell yourself: 'I want to fight for the podium.'

      If you're ambitious, that's what you want to achieve in life. Could I ever have gotten on the podium with the opportunities I had at Haas? No. I didn't believe in that possibility, and I was no longer satisfied with just earning a few points, so it was time for a change. I believe that in such a situation, it was right for me to leave."