"I'm Very Happy, Because I'm Free!" - Guenther Steiner Exclusive Interview

[@RabidJohn]

I love Guenther's attitude to his celebrity. "Ve don't talk about it."

[@CammieRacing]

He's so down to earth and was so polite when I met him at Autosport International 2024!

[@anthonypoirier6744]

We love you Guenther. God bless you and your family 🙏

[@zororosario]

Guenther is the Man, no other currant personality represents emotion more real than this guy😊. We need him back in a F1 team to do his thing

[@RiminiVirage]

Going to see Guenther on tour in November, really looking forward to it. Great guy.

[@adambritain5774]

Where about?

[@vintagevinylvets1187]

Long gone are the days where fans came to watch the best of the best race each other in a Formula One race. 🏁Now it’s hybrid engines, Netflix and social media.🙄

[@Mac-jc8hd]

he's a smart dude

[@kenmartin756]

Another book? I just finished reading his other one

[@freddiefreihofer7716]

About attending F1 races - most people can't afford to go, all the prices are astronomical.

[@mastak696]

You can tell by his answer to the question of whether "he is happy to see haas do well currently?" He made sure to take credit for it by saying there are "a lot of people in the team that he hired." I mean duh, you were the TP, that's your job. Behind this swashbuckling persona that the media seems to lap up, I see a man that is insecure and still hurt by being sacked. Partly understandable and partly revealing of his character.

[@RiminiVirage]

Thanks for the personality analysis, so insightful. I really understand Guenther so much better for your insightful observations. NOT!

[@its_clean]

I don't see why that was an unusual thing for him to say. He's the one who built the entire team from scratch after US F1 failed- Steiner came up with the customer car business model, he got Haas their license, he built the relationships with Ferrari and Dallara, he hired the entire staff and all the drivers. We also all acknowledge that performance changes lag a year or two behind structural changes: for example, we have faith in James Vowles's long-term plan because we know a lot of Williams's current underperformance is a holdover from previous poor management by Claire and Frank. Likewise, we can acknowledge that some of Haas's success this year must be a holdover from groundwork laid in previous years when Steiner was still in charge. It's not unfair to credit some of Haas's success to Guenther. That being said, I agree with Haas's decision to sack Guenther and replace him with Komatsu. Guenther seems like the right type of guy to get a project off the ground with few resources, and fight for survival by any means necessary. He's a shrewd businessman and a hustler and an aggressive manager. When Haas needed to get started with zero support and just a few bucks of Gene Haas's money, Guenther was the right person to get creative and make it work. When Haas was fighting to stay financially alive in 2021, Guenther was the right person to go out and hustle for sponsors and marketing partnerships, and he accepted the clearly painful choice to bring in a pair of rookie pay drivers primarily for the revenue they'd bring to the team, while making the equally painful decision to freeze car development and basically sacrifice the season in order to prepare for the 2022 regs. Now, we see those decisions and sacrifices paying off, as the post-2022 cars are getting more competitive, and we know that would have been impossible (or at least delayed) had Guenther sunk their limited resources into developing the VF-21. Haas is only alive today, and the the VF-24 is only competitive, because of the shit Guenther was willing to eat in previous years. However, I don't see Guenther as having the right approach and temperament to run a now-established team that needs to prioritize stability, incremental progress, and reliable success. That's why I think this was exactly the right time to let him go and promote Komatsu. Ayao appears to have a calmer, more technical, and more detail-oriented attitude that is exactly right for car development and reliable performance. Likewise, his temperament is much better suited to leading and guiding a rookie like Ollie Bearman. So yes, Guenther absolutely deserves credit for building Haas and keeping it alive, and he deserves credit for laying the foundations of their current success. But it's also good that he has moved on, and we can begin crediting Komatsu for the positive changes this year and hopefully a continued improvement in race results.

[@mastak696]

@@its_clean Thanks for this take and the detailed outlook over the arc of several years. I definitely made the comment tinged by the persona he has become. So I’ll be the first to admit it may be fogged to a degree. Still, I do listen to what drivers of the team say. These guys can’t be explicit, but in their statements is an inference. Particularly how Kevin Magnussen a few weeks ago said, I like that Komatsu is straight with me. He told me he is talking to other drivers, whereas team principals in the past lay it on thick. Now, Kevin has had a few team principals, but I do think it was thinly veiled at Steiner.

[@its_clean]

@@mastak696 No worries dude. Guenther is certainly responsible for his own persona- as much as he says he doesn't watch DTS and doesn't play up his behavior for the cameras, I believe he's definitely aware of how he is portrayed in the media and he is (like all of us) playing a bit of a character. I also won't disagree with your read of Kmag's comments. Guenther claims that he has a good friendship with both Kmag and Hulk, and even that they both thanked him for pushing them out of the team and sparing them the misery of 2021, and I have no reason to doubt him- but I also believe that he was never the best driver manager. He doesn't seem to have the right skills for coaching or guiding athletes, and I can totally see how the deal-making and smooth-talking that made him successful on the business side could lead to misunderstandings, dissatisfaction, or a feeling of lack of honesty on the driver side. Komatsu's engineering background and more straightforward personality are almost certainly big improvements over Guenther's style.

[@Banananananaaa]

I want him back in F1 🥺

[@jgyuri]

Why is Haas so good now?

[@scottyskydog]

Because Gunther is gone! Actions speak louder than words! An one’s actions speak volumes about one’s character… or lack there of! He loves attention, as far as his career he’s never had a Championship winning team. An he had 10 years to do it… an failed to win a championship.

[@anthonymurphy3073]

Haas is doing good now? could have fooled me.

[@scottyskydog]

@@anthonymurphy3073 an your obviously not paying attention to there results!

[@DavidFerriday]

Likely because the engineers are in charge now.

[@davidlynch9049]

Good? Lol. Minor better would be a better description.

[@RobertLewis85]

You spelled Team Principal wrong in the description.

[@AutosportOfficial]

Don't know what you're talking about 👀

[@davidlynch9049]

It's the correct spelling.

[@proesterchen]

Haas are probably very happy with no longer employing Günther, given the results the team was apparently capable of all along.

[@nollienick1121]

Oh yeah. He was an awful tp.

[@danielandrews36]

Brilliant person not a great team boss. Still miss him

[@mastak696]

completely agree. I mean if you see the comments from magnussen (who's seat is in jeopardy) and hulkenberg - their praise for the new TP is unequivocal unlike Guenther in the past.

[@MuhammadNiz007]

He lost all my respect when he tried to sue Haas for doing his job. Imagine a company getting sued because you did your job and now want royalty which was never agreed. The fact he hided sponsor until he got a cut was a shame but thankfully he is gone and kamatsu is here. Back to back P6 and especially impressive upgrade in Silverstone comfortably P6

[@saifkhandaker3341]

Let Guenther run Aston Martin

[@wilburwhateley4626]

"I'm free!" Says man who was fired.

[@alanserjeant4947]

Think about what you wrote. Are you saying that if you are fired you are not free ?

[@johanpretorius8328]

This man broke Mick Schumacher and cost him his career

[@utube321piotr]

Mick wasn't good enough and Ferrari pulled the plug on him.

[@simewood2040]

King of the neanderthal management style?

[@nollienick1121]

You really deleted my comment

[@AutosportOfficial]

Which comment? There is nothing being held for review at the moment?

[@gpaje]

Actually depending on the words you use, it's KZbin that deleted your comment, be careful on some of the words you use it happens on anything on youtube.

[@alanserjeant4947]

@@gpaje and the really bad thing is you can't even give examples.They get deleted 😂🤣

[@gpaje]

@@alanserjeant4947 Lol, true. Also, sometimes you think you got the message across and find out later it was deleted!!!

[@randomaccount1337-x9x]

Never liked his character and now we can see he was a bad TP and probably a bad person to work with.

[@davidlynch9049]

He set up the entire race model and team and they came in 5th once. The drivers he hired were mostly shit and so was the car because Haas didn't want to spend money on the car. His time was up because Haas wasn't performing, but the guy deserves respect for his total contribution.

[@quantum1953]

What else can he say, he got fired and tried to save his ego.