Exclusive interview with Günther Steiner

We are here in Austin, the United States Grand Prix. Is this still a special weekend for you?

« Yes, races in the United States are always very busy, especially this weekend since we have our new upgrade package. It’s a good thing when a lot is happening. »

How do you judge your season so far as you have moved back up to ninth place in the Constructors’ Championship?

« Not good enough. We started off well but we have made no progress, unlike everyone else. This has been our biggest handicap this year because we have not been able to find performance. That’s why we made the big decision to bring as many updates so late in the season. If we had been better positioned, we would not have brought such a development just five races from the end. »

Can we consider that you have just launched the single-seater for 2024?

« No! We had already decided to change the concept of the single-seater in 2024. We realized where we were in the championship and we decided to go in this direction from this year to learn as much as possible for the development of next year’s car. If we learn things now, we still have time to introduce a lot of new features for February of next year. We had to make a leap forward and already be in the direction we want to follow for next year. »

You explained that you were launching this new concept because you couldn’t find performance with the old concept. When did you decide to launch a new concept? Were you able to launch these improvements because you saved money due to lack of novelty on the old one?

« Not soon enough! We did not save money for this new car. We ended up in this situation because we developed the old one for four months and we found very little performance. We spent the development money but we found nothing. So we were not going to spend money to produce new parts that we knew would not bring us anything at all. It’s not as if we didn’t have any money, it’s that we didn’t have any performance. So we made a big improvement. »

Speaking of budget, the FIA has just granted you an additional 20 million dollars in capital expenditures (Editor’s note: from 45 to 65 million dollars for the 2024 season). Are you going to be able to spend this additional amount?

« This does not really help us. In the short to medium term, we are going to stick with the current structure and our business model. So we don’t need to make large investments from a capital point of view. If you want to invest 20 million to improve the performance of the car, it’s going to take time. I don’t think everyone is going to jump at the opportunity to be able to spend more than 50 million per season. Someone (Editor’s note: James Vowles from Williams) wanted more money to invest, going up to 100 million. Spending is easy but investing is complicated. It’s easy to buy things, new machines. Every time you make a capital investment, your operational expenses increase: if you buy a new machine, you need people to use it and do something with it. »

In relation to operational expenses, are you at the maximum of the authorized ceiling?

« We are a little below this year. We made our budget and then the ceiling was raised because of inflation. So we are a little below. »

You were talking about your current structure, with a factory in the United States, one in the United Kingdom, and another at Ferrari. Do you need to keep these three structures or do you think about optimizing it?

« The headquarters is in the United States and we operate under an American license. We have all our administration and many machines here. This part works very well, there are no reasons to change it. We have a lot of synergies with the rest of Haas’ sporting activities: here, we have our HR, our finance department because as we are a company registered in the United States, we must therefore respect local regulations. The building is large, but we only have 20-25 people in the United States. We are used to it because we were born this way. Since the first day, we have operated in this way, we did not need to learn to operate in this way. »

Today, you are the only American team. Another one knocks on the door but you have declared that you were not in favor of the arrival of a new team.

« First of all, I believe I’m not the only one who’s not in favor of this. I may be one of the few who says it publicly. It doesn’t matter whether the team comes from the United States or somewhere else. But how does this increase our business? It really doesn’t. At least, no one has explained it to me. That we all receive 20 million dollars at once is really not interesting. We are a business: as a business, if you are presented with something that is not interesting, you simply say no. But we don’t have a vote! We just give our opinion. »

We now have three races in the United States but we are not seeing many new American sponsors joining F1 and your team in particular.

« We still have quite a few American sponsors: Haas Automation (Editor’s note: owner of the team), MoneyGram (title sponsor) and Chipotle. The majority of our income comes from American sponsors. Yes, the trend of the number of spectators in the United States is growing. MoneyGram was very clever as they got in from the start. But the big sponsors, big companies want to first see if this will last in the long run. They do not react very quickly. They have to analyze everything before doing something because they have to take the risk. We are only at the beginning. We could say that it started to take off five years ago but the real take off only occurred two or three years ago and it will continue. »

Speaking of sponsors, you currently have a Ferrari engine. Alfa Romeo has to leave its current team (Editor’s note: bought out by Audi). Are you having discussions with them?

« I can’t speak for Alfa Romeo. It’s up to them to decide what they want to do in Formula 1 but we want to keep the name Haas as the chassis for the coming years. »

You are banking on stability for 2024 with two experienced drivers. As the regulations will be stable in 2025, can we consider that you already have your line-up for 2025?

(roars of laughter) « It’s way too early! There’s no rush. Bringing in young drivers is very risky. McLaren did it very well with their two drivers. They took a big risk with both and both are very good. Liam Lawson did a good job at AlphaTauri. It’s not that easy and I’m not in a hurry. »

From our special envoy in Austin