Haas confirms reason behind Steiner departure

Haas team owner Gene Haas has confirmed that Guenther Steiner'sdeparture from the Formula 1 squad was down to team performance.After 10 years at the helm of the Kannapolis-based outfit,Steiner's exit was confirmed earlier this week. Haas joined the F1grid in 2016 and reached a high in the Constructors' Championshipin its third year, concluding the season fifth in the standings.However, the last number of seasons has marked a difficult periodfor the team, as it finished at the root of the championship twicein the last three seasons. On the eve of the 2024 campaign, Haasmade the decision to make a leadership change and brought Steiner'stenure with the team to an end. “It came down to performance,” Haastold Formula1.com . “Here we are in our eighth year, over 160 races– we have never had a podium. The last couple of years, we’ve been10th or ninth. “I’m not sitting here saying it’s Guenther’s fault,or anything like that, but it just seems like this was anappropriate time to make a change and try a different direction,because it doesn’t seem like continuing with what we had is reallygoing to work.” Promoting from within In Steiner's place arrivesAyao Komatsu, who has been promoted from his Director ofEngineering position. Komatsu has also played an integral role inHaas' F1 journey to date, having been part of the squad sice itsdebut year in 2016. “We looked from within, at who had mostexperience,” Haas stated. “Ayao has been with the team since dayone, he knows the ins and outs of it. “My biggest concern is whenwe go to Bahrain, we need to show up with a car that is ready togo. Maybe having more of a managerial-type and engineeringapproach, we’ll see if that has benefits. “I think Guenther hadmore of a human-type approach to everything with people and the wayhe interacted with people, he was very good at that. “Ayao is verytechnical, he looks at things based on statistics – this is whatwe’re doing bad, where can we do better. It’s a different approach.“We really do need something different because we weren’t reallydoing that well. Like I said, it all comes down to eight years in,dead last. Nothing more I can say on that.”