Guenther Steiner lays out conditions for F1 team principal return

Former Haas chief Guenther Steiner is open to returning to Formula 1 as a team principal but only under the right circumstances.

Steiner was the brains behind the team that came to be known as Haas, with its unusual partnerships with Ferrari and Dallara immediately making it more competitive and stable than other newcomers that joined F1 in the 2010s.

Under his stewardship, Haas secured a best finish of fifth in the championship in 2018, but his time at the helm was also marred by inconsistency, with the team dropping to last in the standings in 2020 after failing to score a point all year.

After losing his job at the end of the 2023 season after Haas elected not to renew his contract, Steiner has engaged in regular media commitments, but hasn’t taken full time-employment yet.

The Italian-American said he is open to returning to F1 in a management capacity, but only if he is aligned with the “vision” of the team and is given autonomy to lead on his own terms.

“I go back to life as a TP if there is a project out there with a vision which I like, not to do a job. I'm not going back to do it just to do a job,” Steiner said on the Business of Sport podcast.

He added: “Would I go back to run a team? Yeah, but it needs to be how I want to run it, not somebody else likes to run it.

“To get the best out of me, [I need to do] what I think, not what other people think.

“I'm not a speaker. I'm a person who wants to do something. If I believe in [something], I will do the best I can. And hopefully it's good enough.”

Asked who he considers the best team owner currently in F1, Steiner highlighted the dearth of private ownership in F1, with most outfits now backed by large manufacturers or corporate entities.

“There is no real owner. There's a few owners out there but they are now owned by big corporates, big teams,” he said.

“There is only one team owned by an individual which is Haas. All the other ones, even Lawrence Stroll's [Aston Martin] is partly owned by the company.

“So for sure I'm not going to work for Gene Haas. I don't have to explain that one.”