The most shocking team boss exits in F1 history

The news this week that Guenther Steiner has been sacked as theTeam Principal of Haas after 10 years in charge surprised some. TheItalian has helped Haas build from the ground up and has beenintegral to its ups and downs during its time on the grid. Howeverpoor results from the last handful of seasons brought about theneed for change in the eyes of team owner Gene Haas. Taking a lookinto the past, RacingNews365 remembers some of the more surprisingteam boss exits that have occurred in Formula 1. Ron Dennis -McLaren One of the most famous Team Principals of all time, RonDennis took over at the helm of McLaren in the early 1980s andreformed the squad into a competitive giant over the next twodecades. Under Dennis' leadership, McLaren won 10 Drivers'Championships and seven Constructors' titles to be established asone of F1's greatest-ever teams. McLaren entered a difficult periodafter the 2012 season and reports emerged that his relationshipwith Mansour Ojjeh became difficult despite the two being inpartnership for almost 30 years. Dennis lost a court case againsthis fellow shareholders in November 2016 and after his contractexpired at the start of 2017, he agreed to sell his shares in theteam to bring his long association with McLaren to an end. OtmarSzafnauer - Alpine Alpine's 2023 F1 campaign had its fair share ofdrama amid a series of managerial changes that occurred during theyear. Szafnauer's exit itself wasn't a complete surprise afterLaurent Rossi (who was removed from his CEO role before Szafnauer'sdeparture) labelled the team's performance as “amateurish” shortlyafter the start of the season. However, in strange circumstances,Alpine announced on the opening day of the Belgian Grand Prixweekend that Szafnauer would exit at the end of the event, alongwith Sporting Director Alan Permane. Szafnauer, who had built astrong reputation for his time spent at the Force India team, wasonly in the role at Alpine for 18 months. Claire Williams -Williams In March 2013, Claire Williams became the Deputy TeamPrincipal of the team built by her father Frank. While the latterstill held the official Team Principal title, it was Claire who ranthe day-to-day operations. There were successful years in the earlyturbo-hybrid seasons as it scored third place in the Constructors'Championships in 2014 and 2015. However as the decade wore on,Williams slipped down the pecking order and ended the 2018, 2019and 2020 seasons last in the standings. Towards the end of the 2020campaign, the squad was sold to Dorilton Capital amid the strainsof the Covid-19 pandemic and the Williams family released controlof the squad after more than 40 years of competition. CyrilAbiteboul - Alpine Cyril Abiteboul was the face of Renault'sFormula 1 operation for much of the turbo-hybrid era in a ManagingDirector role, having been part of the organisation for some twodecades. Renault set itself some ambitious targets when it returnedas a works team in 2016 but it struggled for performance for anumber of years and didn't return to the podium until 2020. For the2021 campaign, it opted to rebrand to Alpine and Abiteboul was setto lead the new era for the team - before his departure wasannounced on the eve of the season. Abiteboul has since taken up arole as the president of Hyundai Motorsport, who is active in theWorld Rally Championship. Monisha Kaltenborn - Sauber Kaltenbornrose to the head of the Sauber team in 2012, becoming the firstTeam Principal in F1 to do so after Peter Sauber stepped down.While her reign is overshadowed by the dramatic start to the 2015campaign that saw Giedo van der Garde launch legal action againstthe team for not honouring a contract, that season was Kaltenborn'smost successful. Sauber scored 36 points en route to eighth in thestandings before falling back in the order the following two years.Despite being in the role for several years, on the eve of theAzerbaijan Grand Prix in 2017, Sauber announced that she had leftthe team with immediate effect “due to diverging views of thefuture of the company”.