Haas team owner Gene Haas said he has “no interest in being 10th” after sacking team principal Guenther Steiner.
The team announced on Wednesday that Steiner would no longer be their team principal and would instead be replaced by Ayao Komatsu.
Speaking to Formula 1 Media, Haas expressed his frustration with the lack of good performances from his team. “Here we are in our eight year, over 160 races – we never had a podium,” he said.
“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,” he added.
“At the end of the day, it’s about performance. I have no interest in being 10th anymore.”
When asked about the circulating speculation that he may sell his team to Andretti Global and retire from the F1 grid, Haas said that he “didn’t get into F1 to sell,” and denied selling the American squad.
“I did it because I wanted to race. Guenther had the same perspective. We’re not here to cash out, we want to race and be competitive.
“We need to do better. It’s easier to keep sponsors and attract sponsors if we’re a mid-pack team and not a dead last team. That’s my perspective on it. At the same time, if we can run a little faster, we’ll get more FOM money, which will make life a bit easier.”
About the team’s performance, Haas said he “can’t understand” how they are running at the back of the grid since they “have a great team, we have great engines, we have really great drivers.”
“There’s no reason why we are 10th. I can’t understand how we can be with all the equipment and people we have.”
When differentiating between Steiner and Komatsu, Haas said that the latter looks more at the statistics and technical side of things, while Steiner prioritized the human approach.