Guenther Steiner reveals the truth behind Mick Schumacher's Haas exit 

Say whatever you want about Haas and Guenther Steiner but Hulk has already proven them right. Unfortunately for Mick, he was just not fast enough for Haas to back him.

What a fabulous interview. Clear, concise, beautifully explained and most people in their right mind would have done exactly what Guenther did for exactly those reasons.

To me Guenther always explains his thoughts well. He's honest and in the end takes the responsibility.

So much respect for Guenther. Love or hate - he's just is what he is...and good for him.

You've GOT to perform when you get in the seat.. Mick seems like a good/talented young man. But it was a learning experience. I personally like Guenther candid nature,, no bs, you know where he stands.

No PR bs, just straight to the point, best interview I have seen.

I'm a big fan of mick and i think his pace since silverstone was more than enaugh to keep him in f1, but i think guenther certainly made the right choise.

The comment regarding pressure on Haas from the media here in Germany is so true. The main culprit was Ralf Schumacher who is a Sky Germany pundit and commentator. He took every opportunity on TV and in the press to state how good Mick was and they he wasn’t getting a chance from Haas. It was bordering on being creepy and painful as well as not supported by the evidence. I mean Mick destroyed a car on an in lap! Ralf has issues he needs to work through, his own son, here in Germany is referred to as the nephew of Michael Schumacher, never the son of Ralf Schumacher, that shows the difference in regard for the two brothers here in Germany. Mick, like Ralf, is unfortunately a Schumacher in name only. Good drivers, Yes! Great drivers, unfortunately not! Look at the results from Nico Hülkenberg so far this season, far better than Mick achieved, and he is not a spring chicken anymore.

Guenther is probably my favorite team boss, he's so straight forward, no sugar coating, no BS, just says it as it is. F1 could use a lot more of that instead of the drama soap opera TV show it's becoming.

I'm a Haas fan and 2 things annoy me: 1. Qualifying pace is better than race pace massively. 2. Drivers make the most stupid mistakes

Magnussen doing so well last year, sealed Micks fate. He even got a pole position.

I feel a bit sorry for Mick, I don't think he has the right people around him to make it in F1. There's far too much finger-pointing and not enough accountability from his camp. The constant media games and sniping at Haas (From Ralf in particular) wasn't helpful, particularly when Mick wasn't pulling his weight, and really it must have been an easy decision for Haas to drop him. I doubt they have any regrets.

Never thought I’d see Haas, a team that employed Gosjean and Mazepin, complain about a different driver causing damage on the car

Take the Schumacher name out of the equation does it create as a big of a story? No….I don’t think so. I think in gunthers position he made the right decision but Carrie dit out wrong

Those are fair comments from Gunther

Excellent, candid interview. Both Haas and Guenther are lucky to have each other. Love to see them have a breakout season one year.

Steiner is spot on here. He was right to bin Schumacher and I particularly respect his comment about individual responsibility for the team. That's one of the fundamental problems in western society, particularly in the public sector.

Gunther is one of the best team principles ever, even better that he's real and not polished.

F1 needs more team personality like Guenther Steiner. Just genuine and truthful. I wish he can help HAAS to climb the ladder like Aston Martin (Former Force India Racing Point) has done. But for Force India to become Aston Martin and the contender that they are now, it took 15 years. HAAS is now about 7 years old, hopefully they will have a break through in the couple of seasons.

Steiner has a massive chip on his shoulder there... Mick would've performed better at A-Romeo... I blame Ferrari

Geunther needs his own show, he has to be the most watchable team principal on the grid. Just order his book. The bloke is a legend

I never see that someone had so many crashes in the F1 and also always the same way always rear had break out so I think there was also something wrong with the settings on the car, maybe wrong balance or bad TC setting, because by every crash from Mick the rear was break out, that's really strange.

Open, candid and genuine.

The cost cap needs changing so that crashes are not part of it.

Very good interview, thanks.

Your name will only carry you so far, ultimately performance will keep you in an F! seat. Guenther is extremely candid and his reasoning was spot on!!!

what gave me a bad impression of Haas is the final round where Mick was call to stop his car donut celebration after the race is over

All fair comments in the interview but Mick did deserve his place in F1. He did well enough in the junior categories, got the right connections and got an opportunity. I was watching the ‘91/‘92 season reviews some weeks ago and if you saw the number of crashes the rookies were having (I think I counted four written off cars by M.Schumacher) none of them would be kept in todays F1. The only difference between then and now (which I always feel is a shame for ANY F1 rookie is in the 90’s you had testing, lots of it. Drivers could run 100’s of laps, they had time away from race weekends to get used to the cars/tyres/setup. It is more of a pressure cooker environment now, but teams still employ 18 year old drivers and then are surprised when they crash a lot! 😂 So in reality, it’s no great surprise that drivers like Alonso and Niko are doing well.

One of most sensible team principals on the paddock

we can feel the lack of performance comparated to last season, maybe because of the budget went into mick crashes fixes instead of new packages.

Mick just seems to nice to be a race car driver,not ruthless enough

I adore Guenther. He's always so honest and makes F1 even more enjoyable with his personality. Go HAAS!!!

Had my reservations about this new sky presenter but to be fair to him a good interview with no softball questions.

Love him very genuine

Brilliant interview

I think Mick needs to be in WEC 1-2 years, keep it steady there and learn to focus more, then get back to F1.

The Hulk is way underrated as an F 1 driver, he deserves to be in one of the top teams 😊

I think to get closer, more competitive racing, the bottom 5 teams should be allowed to spend more the the top 5 teams. The top teams have the better engineers, so the bottom teams should be allowed to spend more money on research and development so even things out.

Haas is not the team for developing drivers. Useless for it

I like that Guenther has accountability, this trait is a fleeting one in society more and more these days.

“We thought he’d be like his dad, but he wasn’t”. Doesn’t need an 8 minute video to say that someone is slow.

Gunter is great. Niko has driven amazing for the team so far. I’d love to see haas rise up the ranks to the front

And now that Guenther is out, Haas overall is doing much better. Funny this thing called life.

Anyone who says Mick wasn't good enough for F1 doesn't understand how good he actually is. Remove the name and he's proven himself in the junior categories. There are drivers currently in F1 e.g. Logan Sargent, Zhou who have been less successful. The Haas wasn't particularly competitive, and Mick was doing what his father did, trying to explore the limits. Haas made a good decision ultimately but personally I think Haas is not the team for Mick to be "exploring the limits" given their budget.

Both Hass cars hitting walls this year too so wasn’t a Mick problem

His father wrote off 3 or 4 Benetton chasis' in his first few years. He also wrote off a few of his competitors cars too.

EVERYone wanted Mick to be the next ‘Michael’. The problems were that we came to ‘expect’ it as much as ‘want’ it, and in the end Mick couldn’t do what only one man had ever done in Formula 1. There is NO shame in that. He is talented, but it’s simply wrong for anyone to expect him to be his dad. That had to be painful for him, and there is already enough pressure on drivers. Hulk has made all of this very clear after only a handful of races.

Guenther, top bloke, very honest

"The higher your rise, the sharper the knives."

All 10 TP's would of let Mick go. No need blaming Guenther for being the one to make the right choice.

Guenther is great. I’d rather watch him being interviewed than any f1 driver. The drivers don’t say anything..

Mick is an F2 and F3 champ - it's a shame he didn't have more time - I reckon if he'd been in a better car, something maybe easier to drive, he'd be on the grid today.

how many times did haas crash with other drivers? Schumacher wasn’t the worst of them^^

It's hard to expect results and points when you provide the drivers with a tractor for 2 years.

Tell me one top teir driver that did not make mistakes, and they still do. Mika is a good driver he is under more pressure than anyone racing, his mother, family ..... His father said he use to go into corners in practice as fast as nessesary to find the top speed for it.

2 full seasons is a pretty decent go at trying to make it. Maybe a year longer than he may have had without his name.

It’s the surname curse, happened with Senna also

Woah, Guenther is so wise and responsible!

Everyone vilifies Guenther for the MS situation. MS had a chance to prove himself. Dont forget Ferarri also dropped him yet nobody mentioned that. Mercedes now more than a year later has an opening for 2025 yet Toto makes no mention of MS despite him criticizing everyone for not giving Mick a seat.

well said.

People don't realize the magnitude one single point can effect a team when it comes to the championship, each team gets a sizeable cut of prize money based on the position the end their season on which is so important to a smaller team such as Haas. Could Gene Haas pump more money into the team to make it easier sure, but he's not willing to.

What people in the "Mick" camp do not realize when they bash Haas in the media and pin all the blame on them, is that Mick was sacked from the Ferrari program at the same time he was sacked from Haas. It means that Mick did not have enough to bring to the table to either organization. It is useful to compare Mick with another Ferrari org driver, Antonio Giovanazi: Antonio was part of Ferrari's young driver Programme (like Mick). He was placed as a driver in a customer team (like Mick). After a two year spell, the customer team sacked him (like Mick). But, unlike Mick, Ferrari (which, along with the customer team, is the party with the most info about the driver) saw enough Value in Antonio to keep him in the organization. Mick could not demonstrate enough value to Ferrari to stay there. Lucky for him, Mercedes (which has less info about Mick than what Ferrari or Haas do) gave him a chance. I hope he evolves/matures as a driver and gets a second chance...

Let's all be clear on one thing - Mick is NOT his father. He's not cut from the same racing cloth as Michael. Last names mean nothing if the level of skill isn't there.

overall unfortunate situation. mike was good but not good enough and a small team like Haas needed to see result or at least minimize financial losses

Mick is no doubt a very good driver, he has won in all the junior categories he could have but Haas just isn't the team that can afford developing talent that will leave to a bigger team once they deem him good enough to join them so why would they risk the financial strain on developing him? People largely only care about him because of his name anyway.. there arent many who look at him as just Mick

Gunther is spot on regarding his Mick Schumacher comments. All the unrealistic expectations loaded on Mick result from who his father is, and I don’t believe Mick has his father’s natural talent.

I was a huge Michael Schumacher fan and whilst it was great to see his son Mick get a drive in F1, he simply was just not good enough at the end of the day.

To be fair Gunther kept 2 drivers together for way too long being MAG and GRO. Terrible team mates and then Nakita totally proving that Haas take money over talent. Terrible team management.

There’s no chance Haas was close to that 145 million limit. They literally had ONE upgrade last season? They said how they gonna find performance in cars setup. They started the season batting Mercedes and ended up as back markers. Mercedes, RB and Ferrari had upgrades every other race.

but the damage cost doesn't count towards the cost cap, does it?

Haas never maxed the cost cap out…. So his anwser is not that fair. In addition Mik brought in over 10m in Sponsorships per year….

all i know is guenther is a legend

Hate him all you want, but he’s a team principal in F1 and knows more than you & me. I think he made the right choice in dropping Mick.

I Hope Mick gets another chance in f1. Look at stroll this Papa Box needs to Go.

Guenther maybe the right man for Ferrari

I also want to become team principal, but I think my english is too good 😞

Mick didn’t u know the guenther has to pull his ball hairs out and it hurts now because he had to pull out a lot more than one hair so his crouch is in a lot of pain because of your little accidents

Michael S. Said it himself. You either have it or you don’t. Go to Indy

And Haas finished last and scored 12 points. Mick Schumacher scored 12 points last year on his own and didn’t have backing from the team. Hulkenberg scored only once 7th Australia and Magnussen with 3 10th places. I believe that Had they had Mick on that team and actually backed him they could have had a better chance of beating the bottom. Magnussen and Hulkenburg are great drivers on their day but they’ve peaked and Haas need some younger drivers in not necessarily too young but they are nothing more than a bottom of the table team atm and will be until they change their lineup.

People can complain about the Haas car all they want, but you cant put money into improving the car if you're spending all the money and time on fixing it from incidents.

It is a real pity for Mick Schumacher he was not able to deliver but unfortunately Guenther is right and it's a double pity this year that Guenther is out from Haas and F1 in general.

His name overshadowed him

Funny looking back at it now, Gunther begged Ferrari for Mick coz he wanted the name ‘Schumacher’ and to carry on for himself on DTS. But it’s on Ferrari also they knew Giovinazzi wasn’t gonna make the next step they should have put him in the Alfa opposite Kimi to mentor him and his career could have gone completely different.

It is like the team is not big so need to have experience driver to survive finance from sponsors.

I think it’s very frustrating when mick blows a million bucks on destroying the car yip that’s a bit frustrating!

There are things he’s not saying. He was sacked for a reason

I like Steiner but I don't think he's a longterm serious TP. This mess with rookies and Schumacher. Taking on two rookies then bringing back previous driver a year later. Letting drivers like Leclerc slip through their hands. Sponsor mess like Rich Energy. Their lack of upgrades over seasons.

I don’t get the hate Gunther is getting. He fried someone for not meeting KPI’s. F1 is a sport where your losing more money than your making. Why would he keep a driver who 1. Is an expensive reliability 2. Only got to points 1 time. Smart move from Gunther picking up Hulk.

Disappointed in the interviewer for asking such childish questions.

I want to see Ricardo in a Haas or Alpine. I think Haas has a decent car but lower level drivers. I'd like to see a higher level driver in it

There are only 20 drivers seats in Formula one. It’s only right and fair for those seats to go to the best 20 drivers available. End of story.

bad move for both, Mick needed stability and Haas ecperience-consistency...

Its a business...and in F1 with small teams every crash hurts development. Love it or hate it Guenther is correct. Mick seems like a good guy but F1 is a business where performance counts

What about Aston and Williams must never be able to development

The Hulk is a bit better but still holds the record for zero podiums in light years of races but at least he doesn’t crash so that’s definitely a good thing but we are still slow that’s because haas doesn’t really want to win! The truth in plain site. At least Lawrence stroll wants win and will win it’s coming

I really wanted Mick to do well in F1....but the fact is he just kept smashing the Haas car to bits. I think if his Dad was able to be there and mentor him he would have done much better.

Mick was bad. No two ways about it. If he was the amazing driver that Schumacher fans keep saying he is, he would have gotten more than a reserve drive offer. But that's all he got. Williams went with a rookie, and AT went with a 27 year old de Vries. Actions speak louder than words. The paddock says good things about Mick because of his dad and for PR reasons. But no one picked him up for a full time seat.

Haas needs a works partner, desperately. I would hope that Gene and Guenther are aggressively pursuing GM/Cadillac.

Gunther made the hire.. so...

his english truly is one of a kind 😂