Drive to Survive fan favourite Gunther Steiner will no longer be in the F1 paddock for 2024, after the surprise announcement on Wednesday of his immediate departure from Haas.
Steiner had been team principal of F1's only American team ever since their inception ahead of the 2016 season.
https://www.balls.ie/motorsport/guenther-steiner-first-grand-prix-2022-504082
For his eccentric outbursts on Netflix's docuseries Drive to Survive, Steiner unexpectedly made himself one of F1's best-known and most popular figures. No doubt the producers of the Netflix show are distraught that one of their biggest stars will not be present for the 2024 season.
The announcement came on Wednesday afternoon, with team owner Gene Haas saying:
I’d like to start by extending my thanks to Guenther Steiner for all his hard work over the past decade and I wish him well for the future. Moving forward as an organization it was clear we need to improve our on-track performances.
We have had some successes, but we need to be consistent in delivering results that help us reach our wider goals as an organization. We need to be efficient with the resources we have but improving our design and engineering capability is key to our success as a team.
Though Haas himself seems to have emphasized on-track performance, 1996 F1 world champion Damon Hill thinks there may have been other motives behind the decision to axe Steiner.
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Damon Hill muses on reasons for Gunther Steiner Haas departure
The fact that Gunther Steiner was not quoted in Haas F1's statement announcing his departure, and the reports which suggested he did not even get a chance to bid the team farewell, suggest that there may have been some friction behind the scenes at Haas.
Speaking to Sky Sports' F1 Podcast in the immediate aftermath of the news breaking, Damon Hill questioned whether Gene Haas had become uncomfortable with the amount of media attention on his team principal.
Steiner was undoubtedly one of the stars of Drive to Survive and received an immense amount of attention for his role in the series. He also penned a book last year titled 'Surviving to Drive,' and is set to star in a CBS workplace comedy.
Hill suggested that Haas may have been uneasy with Steiner being the man to take the public adulation, and said that the volume of Steiner's media "distractions" may have led to his departure:
Don't forget Gunther was actually one of the masterminds of putting the whole thing together in the first place. Gene was really the investor...you could say it was actually his [Steiner's] team.
But he didn't own it. As you say, he's getting a lot of attention and distractions. You [Craig Slater] interviewed him before Christmas...he was talking about this TV series they're planning.
Maybe that was too much for some people. As a team principal, your primary job and focus has to be on what you do.
It wasn't your fault that he was popular and became a celebrity.
Haas enjoyed surprising success in the early years of their spell in F1, claiming P6 in their first race and finishing fifth in the constructors' championship in 2018.
It has been trickier in recent seasons however, with Haas struggling to claw their way off the bottom of the constructors' standings. Isolated high points, such as P5 in the opening race of 2022, or pole position at Sao Paulo that year, have somewhat masked the struggles of the team.
They enter the 2024 season with new team principal Ayao Komatsu in place, and Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen retained as their drivers.
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