A Haas victory: « it will happen » according to Steiner

Günther Steiner, team principal of Haas Racing, asserts that his team will win races in Formula 1. The youngest F1 team is celebrating its 150th Grand Prix at Monaco this weekend, and Steiner – who has been leading Haas since its inception – stated that he was struggling to digest this significant milestone.

“I can’t understand,” declared Steiner on the F1 Nation podcast. “I’m not a statistics specialist. I live day by day, from race to race. There are people who have achieved much more than us, but 150 Grand Prix is not nothing. And if you think about it, being the youngest team, I think that says something. There have been ups and downs, but that’s life.”

A major slump between 2019 and 2021

Since its arrival on the grid in 2016, Haas has experienced varying fortunes, with a fifth-place finish in the constructors’ championship in 2018. The American team then went through a rough patch in the following three years, scoring only 31 points in total. In 2021, the team hadn’t even managed to score a single point with a car that had received little development work throughout the year.

The lack of success has sparked rumors that owner Gene Haas could withdraw from F1, but the renewed enthusiasm for the sport has helped the team secure new lucrative sponsorship deals. Haas now has a more secure financial base and appears ready to stay in the premier category of motorsport in the near future.

For his part, Steiner noted that the unpredictable nature of Formula 1 made it impossible to have a plan and stick to it. « If you start a business, you have a five-year plan. If you start anything in motorsport, you must have a five-year plan, but how realistic is it? Look at Formula 1 today. Would you have thought, five years ago, that Formula 1 would experience such enthusiasm as it does currently? Honestly, I would answer no. I could say that I saw it coming, but I didn’t see it coming when we started, when we said to ourselves, «Okay, let’s try to do something.” I don’t want to speak on behalf of Gene, but I think he was in the same mindset. »

Steiner ensures that Haas will win races

Haas, one of the smallest teams on the F1 grid, has not yet stood on the podium. The team’s best result in seven seasons of Formula 1 dates back to the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix, when Kevin Magnussen finished in fourth place.

Nevertheless, Steiner said he was confident that his team would eventually win a Grand Prix: “The current goal for this year is to progress in the constructors’ championship compared to last year, improving every year, it’s as simple as that,” said the 58-year-old leader. “And at some point, we want to win races. I don’t know when exactly, and I’m not going to say it’s this season or the next season, but at some point, it will happen with Haas.”

The team finished eighth in the constructors’ championship last year and currently occupies seventh place after five races in 2023.