Steiner: Some of those who left now want to come back

Serious difficulties related to external conditions had to overcome Haas F1 even before the start of the season, when she was forced to stop working with Russian racer Nikita Mazepin and title sponsor Uralkali. But such an experienced professional as Kevin Magnussen returned to the team, from whom Mick Schumacher can learn a lot, and after 13 stages of the season, Haas is in 7th place in the individual standings with 34 points.

In general, the American team is now doing a lot better than in 2021 and leader Gunther Steiner still believes that with a good combination of circumstances it can return to the level of four years ago. In 2018, she had her best season, finishing 5th in the Constructors’ Championship.

“You see, now we somehow don’t realize it. Maybe in a few years I’ll realize what happened to us,” Steiner said. – We’ll probably remember this one day and think, “Wow, how did we manage to cope with everything?” Our team has gone through so many ups and downs, although of course this did not happen all at once, but at different stages of history, and we managed to overcome everything.

I constantly say to the team, “Hold on, we have to move forward!” I believe in her, but there’s no guarantee that everything will be okay, and I’m always honest about this. But when all goes well, I say to myself something like this: “Thank God at least the people know that their efforts are not in vain, and they understand why it was necessary to survive adequately last year, when the season was very difficult for us. “

When we finished fifth in Bahrain, it was a very happy moment. It felt like we were back on track after two very bad years, you know?

Someone left the team and the outflow of specialists was 20% more than usual. This happened for a variety of reasons, but some just didn’t believe we could return. However, most of the people who have worked in Haas F1 for a long time have still stayed because they also believe in the team, they love this atmosphere, they love what we do.

A fairly large group of specialists has been working with us from day one or almost from the beginning. At the same time, I believe that if someone doesn’t want to stay on the team, there’s no point in keeping them. You can say something to these people, explain what we do to overcome difficulties, but if people have lost faith in the team, I won’t offer them money, if they would just stay.

By the way, some of those who left are now calling and asking if they can come back because they realized the neighbors’ grass is not greener than ours. And when there are vacancies on our team, we take people back – I’m not vindictive.

I believe that closer to the end of the current technical regulation’s validity i.e. in 2024 or 2025 we may not win races but at least we can claim the podiums – there is so much hope. This is our goal. While all other teams have the same opportunities as we do – everyone works within limited budgets, we mustn’t forget this.

You still have to be good at what you do. This is the most important thing and our technical service must ensure the desired result. Now everything depends only on us, as there are no more financial problems.”