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Gene Haas has explained that “a different approach” is required to the running of his F1 team following 10 years under Guenther Steiner’s rule.
Steiner was axed on Wednesday, with Haas indicating in a statement that greater focus was required on engineering to elevate his team up the grid after finishing 10th in the constructors’ standings in two of the last three years.
Instead of hiring the experienced likes of Mattia Binotto or Otmar Szafnauer, Haas instead promoted from within by appointing Ayao Komatsu as his new team principal, the 47-year-old Japanese previously serving as director of engineering.
“It came down to performance,” said Haas, speaking to Formula1.com as he outlined why Steiner had to go.
“Here we are in our eighth year, over 160 races, we have never had a podium. The last couple of years, we’ve been 10th or ninth.
“I’m not sitting here saying it’s Guenther’s fault, or anything like that, but it just seems like this was an appropriate time to make a change and try a different direction because it doesn’t seem like continuing with what we had is really going to work.”
Arguably former Ferrari team principal Binotto, given his strong engineering background and knowing Haas reasonably well given the ties between the Scuderia and the American team over the years, would have been a good replacement for Steiner.
Haas, though, foresaw issues.
“I’ve been running Haas Automation for over 40 years now,” he said. “Bringing people in from the outside, it takes them time to learn, six months to a year, and a lot of time you don’t even like them.
“It’s better to take people you know, and even if they are not the perfect fit, at least you know what you’re going to get.
“That’s really worked out pretty well for us here at Haas Automation, so I’m really applying a lot of the building blocks that were here to the Formula 1 team.
“I really like to have people that I know, who understand the day-to-day operations, understand the people, (rather) than bringing in a stranger who is going to stir everything up and create a mess.”
As to appointing Komatsu, Haas added: “We looked from within, at who had the most experience.
“Ayao has been with the team since day one, he knows the ins and outs of it. My biggest concern is when we go to Bahrain, we need to show up with a car that is ready to go. Maybe having more of a managerial-type and engineering approach, we’ll see if that has benefits.”
Crucially concerning the differences between Steiner and Komatsu, Haas remarked: “I think Guenther had more of a human-type approach to everything with people and the way he interacted with people. He was very good at that.
“Ayao is very technical, he looks at things based on statistics. This is what we’re doing badly, where can we do better. It’s a different approach.
“We really do need something different because we weren’t really doing that well. Like I said, it all comes down to eight years in dead last. Nothing more I can say on that.”
Haas at least stated it was hard to part company with Steiner given all they have been through over the past decade, particularly as it was the 58-year-old Italian who was instrumental in pulling the team together after it was decided in 2014 that the privateer route was the way to go to enter F1.
“I like Guenther, he’s a really nice person, a really good personality,” said Haas.
“We had a tough end to the year. I don’t understand that, I really don’t. Those are good questions to ask Guenther, (as to) what went wrong.
“At the end of the day, it’s about performance. I have no interest in being 10th anymore.”
