The moment that made Haas team principal Guenther Steiner go "Yeah, that was f**king cool"
Haas team principal Guenther Steiner recently revealed how one of the highlights for him in F1 was when his team debuted in the sport and even scored points.
Starting off in F1 as a new team can be quite daunting and difficult since there are several more experienced teams that can easily dominate. However, for their first year, the American team did pretty well.
In an exclusive interview with PlanetF1, Guenther Steiner explained how one of the coolest moments of his career was when Haas rolled out for the first race in the 2016 F1 season. He stated that several people were skeptical about whether a new team could keep up with other teams. He said:
"Going out in 2016, the first race ready and scoring points. If I think back now, at the time, I didn’t realise how cool that was. Because I don’t think many people have done that before. If they’ve done that, it was different times but, in this time, to go into your first race… When we came in, there were so many naysayers. I mean, I don’t care about naysayers, I want to… I do my job, and I’m sure they are proven wrong, you know?"
Later on, Steiner spoke about Haas' business model and how many people in and around F1 criticized it. However, Haas team boss now claims that there are many who copy or mimic their business model. Nonetheless, he felt quite cool reminiscing about his team's first race in F1. He concluded:
"So we proved them wrong. All of a sudden, we had a lot of friends because it was like ‘you will never get to the grid with the business model’ because we adopted a new business model, which a lot of people now copy or take parts of it themselves. When I think back now, we got out there in Australia, on the grid with two cars with no mistakes, and scored points – it’s pretty cool."
Guenther Steiner happy with the current driver lineup at Haas
Guenther Steiner recently spoke about how he would like to lock in both Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg for the next year as well. As the 2023 F1 season progresses, driver contract announcements will start pouring in. Haas has frequently changed it's drivers in the past few years. Hence, Steiner wants some kind of stability for now.
“I hope before the summer break, I think we can make the decision. You know, we need to obviously do it and we will get our drivers confirmed soon as possible. I mean, as I said before, I mean, it’s nothing new for you guys. I’m pretty happy with our driver lineup now,” he said (via PlanetF1).
Gunther Steiner expects Haas to keep their current driver lineup in 2024:
"Driver market-wise, I think we are in the moment where we are pretty happy what we have got. Obviously we want to get to announce our drivers as soon as possible so we don't have to hang around like last
Both Magnussen and Hulkenberg are quite experienced and have brought points to the team. Hence, it is safe to say that both will stay at Haas for the 2024 F1 season as well.