Haas F1 Team’s Guenther Steiner opened up on the COVID-19 crisis, the 2020 season, the outfit’s future as they are preparing for the worst.
The Haas F1 team is in a fragile state. Like all outfits, it is dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, but on top of this, poor performance in their 2019 season has meant that they are dealing with pressure to succeed this year and remain on the grid in future.
Despite the rumors of a potential Haas departure, Steiner stated that his boss Gene intends on keeping his F1 venture going, and wishes to ‘see the project through’, rather than scrap it at first sight of poor performance – something they had an abundance of last year.
The team also endured a shambolic sponsorship deal with Rich Energy, which added insult to injury, often in a literal sense, such as when the energy drinks company falsely claimed to have terminated the deal, or when they stopped paying the team the contracted amounts that they owed.
“For sure there is a threat out there if there is no income, if there are no races this year, if we don’t get paid for it,” started Steiner when speaking to F1.com. “There’s always a threat there, if we don’t come back. Giving it a percentage, I wouldn’t know what to do. I think it’s low, but I never would say never.
“We just need to be conscious of what we are doing and make sure we do the best and hope we go racing as soon as possible and we turn it into a positive, that needs all 10 teams to work on that and for F1 and FIA to collaborate with us to make sure that we are here. Like all of us, Gene doesn’t know what is coming in the near future, and whether or not we are having races this year.
“He’s happy to wait longer, but like any businessman, you’re not happy to wait forever. Let’s hope over the next few months, we get a better view of the near future, hopefully the situation doesn’t stay as fluid as it is now. There is no one to be blame, it’s just the circumstances. At the moment, he can stay calm but at some stage he needs to make a decision. But at the moment he wants to see it through.
“We have furloughed people, and we didn’t let them go. It’s one of those things, we just need to make sure we make the right decisions in the future, which keeps him interested into the sport,” summed up Steiner. One thing, though, that’s making the fulfillment of Haas’ plan significantly more difficult, has been the coronavirus pandemic, which has halted all racing for the time being, and worsened finances at small F1 teams.
Along with other outfits, Haas were forced to furlough much of their staff, and while this may seem cutthroat, Steiner defended his team, saying that they are merely trying to ensure their survival. “You never take it [the news of furlough] well, but most of our people understand why we are doing it,” he said.
“This is not to cut them short, it’s to make sure they have a job in the future. There is nothing malicious, we’re not being cheap or trying to hoard money. We try to do the best we can. A lot of people who have lost their jobs. in other industries. So long as we can keep the jobs, that is what we try to do. We have very limited income.
“FOM tries to help. But we don’t know if we go back racing. I personally think we will but you have to plan for the worst, that we have no income from FOM. And if we have no income someone needs to pay – and those funds are limited. It wouldn’t be right to pay if nothing has happened.”
For most teams, this furlough was merely unavoidable due to the aforementioned lack of income. However, to limit the long-term impacts of the crisis, the the lowering of the budget cap ceiling has been heavily discussed among teams.
Very quickly, teams verbally ratified a reduction from $175 million dollars to $150 million dollars. Upon requests of further reduction from smaller teams, though, there was pushback from outfits like Ferrari, who would be forced to layoff staff if the budget cap were to be lowered below this threshold.
Steiner, leading one of F1’s smallest and financially feeble teams, is understandably of the belief that the cap should be lowered more, as he also stated that F1 has been given the kick in the butt that it desperately needed, and that it should seize this opportunity to create a more fair system, lowered budget cap and all.
“It should come down,” said Steiner. “I respect the big teams and their challenge to get down from a lot of people to a smaller amount. There’s a saying, ‘It’s never nice to jump in a cold swimming pool, but at some stage you have to do it’ – otherwise you’re not around anymore. It will be cold and it will be unpleasant but when you have done it, you’ve done it. This crisis gives us an opportunity. We need to make the sport survive.
“It is no good if the three rich teams are left. If McLaren and Renault want to come down, it means something. They are car manufacturers. They are big teams in my opinion. They realise where the world is going. Going on like this doesn’t make a lot of sense. F1 will change, I hope for the better.
“I always hope we will have 10 teams, who can compete for podiums, which I know is too optimistic, but at least if we can half the grid who can compete for the podium it would be nice, like we had no so long ago. I hope we will go back to not the one with the biggest wallet is the world champion, but the best team effort is world champion.
“I hope this crisis pushes us in that direction. But obviously I don’t know if it will happen,” summed up Steiner. The budget cap is set to be imposed in 2021, but in the mean time, F1’s damage limitation efforts are restricted to attempts to cram in as many races as possible in the 2020 season, which has had 11 races affected already.
F1 intends to start their season in July, with Austria as the opening round, and while an exact targeted number of races has not been disclosed, it is widely known that – in order to have a substantial number of races – there will have to be a densely-packed schedule.
Part of this will likely mean double-header races, with two competitive events in one weekend, and also, races at every weekend with few exceptions, both solutions being ones which will take a toll on teams, but also provide opportunity for Haas, as Steiner explained:
“We’ve been through tough things already. We have less people and we are used to bigger challenges than the big team who have two people for every job, and we have one person. But that’s what we have. We can cope with it.
“It’ll be challenging for our people, but a challenge is an opportunity. Hopefully we can do well. It won’t be easy but it won’t be easy for anybody. We will do the best we can and hopefully we will do a better job than others do with more people. Everybody’s approach will change. You can’t just develop and put upgrades on the car.
“If we have 15 races in six months, that’s a hell of a job. You need to make your life not easy, but simpler so you don’t make mistakes. If you make it difficult, and open up the possibility of making mistakes, there are only downsides. You spend money doing it, and trying to find out what went wrong, and you have no results which is no good.”
Here’s last on budget cap from Zak Brown
Here’s FIA on extension of F1 shutdown
Here’s latest on what F1 is planning for 2020
Here’s Romain Grosjean speaking up on multiple topics
Here’s news on Haas furlough and pay cuts
Here’s an exclusive interview with Haas reserve Louis Deletraz
The story was edited by Darshan Chokhani