Haas team principal Guenther Steiner weighs in on the FIA-Toto Wolff saga
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner recently gave his opinion on the entire FIA and Toto Wolff fiasco. A few days ago, F1's governing body issued an investigation against Toto Wolff and his wife Susie Wolff based on a rumor that confidential information has been shared between the two about the teams and the FOM.
The rumor was from BusinessF1, which stated that some F1 team principals have complained about the situation. However, every single team published an identical statement refuting any complaints against Susie and Toto Wolff.
Eventually, the entire case was dropped by the FIA.
Speaking in an interview with Sky Sports, Guenther Steiner explained how the FIA and F1 need to find a solution to this issue and not get distracted from the sport itself, which he claims is in a great position as of now.
He said:
"I think it is very important for the sport that we find a solution. I think the solution, as we saw, the teams are aligned [in] what we want. Because Formula 1 is in a very good place at the moment; as a business, as a sport, and as an audience, they are very good. We don't need any distractions from that.
"So it's more like between the FIA and F1 to sort it out. We made a statement because it is the truth, you know. We didn't have a problem with what was said."
Guenther Steiner explains Haas' poor development progress in 2023
Haas was nowhere when it came to updating their car throughout the 2023 F1 season. Nico Hulkenberg openly criticized the team for not moving forward with the upgrades.
Speaking to The Race, team principal Guenther Steiner revealed that Haas had no financial limitations or lack of effort. They were simply unable to find any performance in their development.
“We got hit pretty badly with not making progress in development,” Steiner said. “We put all the effort in; there was no limitation on effort, and we had the budget to do upgrades. Everybody thinks we don't do upgrades because we don't have the money, but we didn't find any performance; that was the biggest thing.”
Furthermore, Steiner stressed that Haas needs to improve their time utilization in the wind tunnel.
“And the other thing was that when we realised, it was a little bit late, and we should have caught that earlier. We just need to get better in the wind tunnel; otherwise, the team is not too bad. It could always be better, but it’s just that we didn’t find anything,” he added.
Haas ended the season dead last in the constructors' championship with only 12 points in their pocket.