Guenther Steiner admits Haas wouldn’t have been able to join F1 in the present day circumstances laid out by the sport

Guenther Steiner admits that Haas wouldn’t have been able to join the sport in recent times amidst recent drama and complications.

Guenther Steiner admits Haas wouldn’t have been able to join F1 in the present day circumstances laid out by the sport

Guenther Steiner (Via IMAGO)

After a successful venture in Nascar, Gene Haas first announced his intentions to join F1 back in 2014. Haas F1 team joined the grid later on in 2016 as they were granted entry from that season onwards. Guenther Steiner was the one who persuaded Gene to create an F1 team in the US. Years later, he is still the team principal at Haas. The American squad was the first to enter the sport in a six year span. 

With the 2026 regulations being yet another game changer for the sport, multiple parties have shown their interest in becoming a part of the grid. One of key names is none other than Andretti. FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has also stated that it is the FIA’s duty to follow the regulations, which cater for up to 12 teams. However, the existing 10 teams don’t share this enthusiasm. One of the main reasons behind it is having to split the winnings even more of another team joins. 

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Haas F1 team boss Guenther Steiner reflects on this and shares his thoughts on it in an interview. “The sport has changed so much. If you start as a privateer at the moment, you wouldn’t join,” he said. “It is very difficult now to put it up. And that’s a risk as well. If you get an 11th team and they don’t make it, what does that do to this sport? Because we always think: ‘Oh, it will be for sure a success.’ It could be a failure as well,” he continued. 

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Related: Helmut Marko asks Sergio Perez to ‘forget the World Championship dream’ amidst uncertainty over the Mexican’s Red Bull future

Guenther Steiner showcases the reality of having a new team with the Volkswagen example 

Guenther Steiner
Guenther Steiner (Via Haas on X)

With F1 gaining immense popularity in recent years, thanks to ‘Drive to Survive’ and the title fight between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, complications have arisen when it comes to having a new team. Guenther Steiner talks about how the Volkswagen Group bought a stake in Sauber instead of starting from scratch. This shows how challenging it is to join the sport. 

The fee for entering a new team in Formula 1 was previously $200 million, which would be distributed amongst the rest of the teams to make up for their loss of prize money. However, that number will probably be tripled in order to represent the added value in the current market. This has made it even harder for any entity to join the sport. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

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