Guenther Steiner

Steiner – Not getting to thank team before departing Haas “stung”

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In the round-up: Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner admits he regrets not having the opportunity to thank all his colleagues before leaving the team

In brief

Steiner – Not getting to thank Haas team before departing “stung”

Guenther Steiner, who was team principal of the Haas F1 team for its first eight seasons before owner Gene Haas opted not to extend his contract for 2024, says he wishes he had the opportunity to thank all his former colleagues before leaving the team.

Speaking at the Autosport International show, Steiner admitted that it was unfortunate he was not able to speak with the whole team before departing.

“Yeah, it stung, but they all know me and they all know that I appreciate what they did,” he said. “It’s always best to say it to them, it would be nice to say, ‘hey guys, thanks for what you did for the team.’

“I would just like to thank all the team members, which I couldn’t give a proper goodbye to when I left, so I’ll do it this way. And I want to say also thank you to all the fans who supported us while I was there.”

Barnard dominates FRMEC opener

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Taylor Barnard dominated the opening race of the Formula Regional Middle East Championship at the Yas Marina circuit, yesterday, leading from pole position to win by almost five seconds.

Barnard, who finished runner-up in the FRMEC last season and won a single race in last year’s F3 championship, led home Ferrari academy driver Tuukka Taponen in Saturday’s opening round, with Martin Stenshorne completing the podium in third. Races two and three will take place today.

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Comment of the day

Should the so-called ‘dragon move’ where drivers weave to break the tow in the Indy 500 be banned? Yes, believes Unicron…

The ‘dragon move’ scares the life out of me. The lead car swerving towards the inside track has full visibility of where the end of the pitlane wall is, but the cars behind can only see as far as the rear wings in front of them.

When – if – the lead car leaves it to the last second to swerve back across and onto the circuit proper, I’m always scared that the following cars won’t have enough time to react and will just plough head on into the end of the pit wall. So banning this move is very sensible in my view. Not doing so is just waiting for a massive accident to happen.
Unicron

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Nick, Koolkieren and Alexandre Araujo!

On this day in motorsport

  • On this day in 1994 Benetton announced JJ Lehto would be Michael Schumacher’s team mate with Jos Verstappen joining the team as test driver

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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14 comments on “Steiner – Not getting to thank team before departing Haas “stung””

  1. IMOLAFTW
    14th January 2024, 6:09

    Are these Google type firings pervasive across many US corporations?

    1. anon
      14th January 2024, 9:30

      Unfortunately, this site has cut out the part of the quote from Steiner where he confirmed that he technically wasn’t fired from Haas. Steiner himself has now confirmed what was reported elsewhere, which is that Haas declined to extend his contract with them when it expired.

      1. notagrumpyfan
        14th January 2024, 10:23

        What’s the difference? The fact that there is no severance pay? (Although there could be if that’s included in the contract).

        ‘Firing’ or ‘sacking’ is not a legal term, and it’s up to the reader to determine if this ‘termination of employment’ falls under that loose definition.

        1. anon
          14th January 2024, 11:39

          notagrumpyfan, functionally, yes – dismissing an individual on the grounds of being incapable of meeting the performance requirements of their role, given Haas have implied that is the ground for replacing Steiner, involves a very different set of procedures to be followed compared to choosing not to renew a contract for employment and has different criteria that the employer needs to demonstrate to justify a dismissal.

          1. notagrumpyfan
            14th January 2024, 12:04

            (You probably know) that’s not what I mean.
            In both instances you don’t continue your employment because the employer wants to terminate it. Colloquially, we call that being ‘fired’ or ‘sacked’.

            Employing somebody on short term contracts is much easier to terminate than a fixed contract.
            But then again, that freedom (for the employer) is typically reflected in the annual cost.

          2. Nick T.
            15th January 2024, 14:48

            And I assume you also agree with those who say that, without a signed and dated doc with notarization giving express consent, it’s sexual assault.

            He got fired. Whatever the legal or technical term is for what happened to Steiner. I don’t have a contract with my maid, but if after five years of her working exclusively for me I told her I was going to have someone else clean my house, I’d call that a firing.

      2. notagrumpyfan
        14th January 2024, 10:28

        PS it is a pity though that this site doesn’t include links to the top part of the round-up news snippets; especially as they make it the headline story.

        F1fanatics used to be very diligent in always linking the original sources of all news items.

  2. Profile Photo

    Esploratore (@esploratore1)
    14th January 2024, 9:37

    Damn, not getting to say goodbye to the team member is bad timing, even if I don’t like steiner he did well to use the opportunity to do so when talking to the press.

    1. Rick
      14th January 2024, 12:17

      Steiner knew he was gone before the new year. Not saying “good bye” is on him, no one else

  3. Ludewig
    14th January 2024, 10:34

    The Sky Sports interviewer repeatedly tried to bait Guenther unto making negative comments about Gene. Shame on him and good to see how graceful Steiner handled it. He didn’t even drop a single f-bomb.

  4. Profile Photo

    A M (@amam)
    14th January 2024, 11:48

    When will Keith be doing his usual end of season car and team performance assessments?

  5. Profile Photo

    BasCB (@bascb)
    15th January 2024, 8:33

    Wait, Gil de Ferran died? Wow. RIP Gil and thanks for the racing.

    1. Coventry Climax
      15th January 2024, 19:13

      Glad we live in different countries and we’re not in joint traffic, as you’d probably be asleep behind the wheel?
      Sorry mate, but this was extensively reported on in the press and sites like this one.

  6. osnola
    15th January 2024, 19:36

    Comment of the day

    Every driver knows the track and should know where the pitlane starts.
    While swerving can be dangerous because people use the pitlane ( that part should be banned immediately)
    Braking before a corner happens at the exact chosen point every lap. Every topdriver does know at which point on track he currently is. Some are even able to drive the track blindfolded or in heavy rain/spray without any usable line of sight.

Comments are closed.