TEAM PRINCIPAL

As Netflix viewers will know all too well, Haas F1 Team boss GUENTHER STEINER never minces his words. MAXIM catches up with him to talk about his squad’s return to the midfield…

-  STEWART BELL

The 2022 F1 season came just in the nick of time for Haas. The American squad spent the better part of the last two seasons down the back of the grid, with last year a transition season to concentrate on the new era regulations car. It was a huge gamble, but one that paid off – with the team back at the head of the midfield, hoping for the chance at a lucky podium when the top teams slip up. The one who’s ridden the wave most of all is team boss Guenther Steiner, the no-nonsense operator whose ordinarily behind-the-scenes super-sweary rants have been made world-famous by Netflix series Formula 1: Drive To Survive. Expletives aside, Steiner is one of the paddock’s good guys, with a big heart.

So good to see Haas doing well again, Guenther. The opening race in Bahrain must have been such a relief for you?

Absolutely. If you think it’s good, we think it’s even better. It’s good for the team; we had a few tough years. And hopefully they are in the past. But I think we learnt a lot out of that. And I think that’s why we are where we are now.

When did you realise you might be onto a good thing?

I think after the Barcelona test. I was optimistic with the development of the car last year but I didn’t know what the other ones [teams] are having. Our guys did a great job in the development phase, the improvements we made over time, but I had no idea what the other people are doing. Obviously in Barcelona we could already see the car isn’t bad. We didn’t get the best out of it because we had so many reliability issues but then at the Bahrain test I thought we were top-three. I didn’t know where we were. And then Bahrain race comes here, and we really knew because it’s reality then. And that’s very good. Then having Kevin back helped as well a lot to the team.