A year has passed since Guenther Steiner and the Haas F1 team parted ways. During that time, the team has seemed to find some pace — and the former team principal has shared more about the challenges of running the team.

In a recent interview with GPFans, Steiner opened up about the conundrum he found himself in while running Haas — namely, that he wanted to win races, but owner Gene Haas simply wanted to “participate.”

Guenther Steiner: Gene Haas “doesn’t want to become World Champion”

The Haas Formula 1 team launched into the international open-wheel racing realm back in 2016. Founded by American business magnate Gene Haas and run by Guenther Steiner, the outfit succeeded in making it to the big leagues by buying up assets from the defunct Manor team and forging deals with parts providers across the board.

After two seasons finishing eighth in the World Constructors’ Championship, Haas shocked everyone by finishing fifth overall in just its third year in the sport — but it perhaps set its own standards too high, because the team has never managed to hit that target again.

With the departure of Steiner and the arrival of Ayao Komatsu as team boss, Haas seems to have made some steps in the right direction — but it has also allowed Steiner to speak more openly about the struggles he faced at the American team.

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Steiner explained that the final period at Haas was difficult because, “I do things to move forward, to have success.

Entering F1, he felt that Haas had built “a solid foundation,” but that the foundation got shaky during COVID. Any time the team attempted to improve its standing, a lack of improvement from the team as a whole saw Haas struggle.

Steiner admitted that he and the team were “putting in the effort to do Formula 1,” even if their finishing position wasn’t the best, but that there was mounting frustration because “you know you cannot finish first or second because you just haven’t got the infrastructure available like the other teams.

“It gets frustrating, and you try to make a plan, you try to develop the plan, and the owner doesn’t listen to you.

“He has got the right not to listen, I fully agree, because he’s the owner. I’m not the owner.

“But it gets frustrating, and I’m not good as a frustrated human being, because I’m not just happy to have a job. I want to have success at whatever I do. I want to do as good as I can.”

Steiner said that the disconnect between his goals and expectations, and those of Gene Haas’,  became an issue.

“I think I did my job as good as I could, trying to find solutions to get to the top of the sport,” he explained. “But obviously the owner was happy to finish sixth, seventh, eighth, or ninth.

“And after I had done that for five, six, seven years, it’s like, yeah, I did this before. I want to do a little bit more now. And that didn’t happen. That was my frustration.

“But fair play; I don’t own the team.”

Steiner then went on to pinpoint what he felt to be an ideological difference between himself and the team owner.

“I don’t think he wants to become World Champion,” Steiner said of Gene Haas. “He just wants to participate.”

According to Steiner, that mindset breeds a worth ethic that is not compatible with Formula 1, namely, that the “good people” who “put effort in” want to achieve something more than merely finishing a race. Preventing them from doing so instead opens the doors to “people which just want to have a job” and that “couldn’t care less” about the performance of the team.

Steiner’s criticism is strong, but whatever the case, there were indeed signs of improvement for the American team in 2024.

Drivers Kevin Magnussen, Nico Hulkenberg, and Oliver Bearman scored a total of 58 points, which was more than the team amassed between 2020 and 2023. The sum was good enough for seventh overall in the championship.

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