"We got kicked in our nuts"- Haas chief recalls how entities tried to take advantage post loss of Russian title sponsor

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has revealed that after they lost their major Russian sponsor Uralkali, there were many suitors willing to associate with the team at cheaper rates.

Steiner has said that cutting ties with Dimitri Mazepin's company was a huge blow for Haas. However, the team got back on its feet and is still performing very well. The Haas boss said:

“In the beginning, the good interest was people wanting a cheap ride because they thought we were struggling, and all that stuff. That didn’t work. People see what we are doing. We got kicked in our nuts basically, but we are still up and standing and going strong. People believe in that. They know we can do better than we are doing now.”

When questioned if there was interest in the team, Steiner revealed that there's a lot of people starting to watch F1, which is good news for the sport. He said,

“There are quite a lot of people (wanting to watch F1) at the moment."

However, the team principal laughed off talks that there's already a queue outside Haas offices. However, he hopes to announce something soon if talks progress well, saying:

“Honestly, I mean, what is a queue? A queue is three people, but you don’t have that many companies that (will) pay you this amount of money, but we have had very good talks, and it’s progressing very well. We are negotiating; there is good interest in it. Hopefully, if everything goes well in the next month or two, we can announce something.”

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Haas entered summer break off an average weekend

The Haas team principal was not too happy before the start of the summer break as things did not go according to plan.

Neither driver secured points, as Mick Schumacher struggled on hard tyres, while Kevin Magnussen's race was compromised because of a damaged front wing. Reflecting on the disappointing weekend, Steiner said:

"It was a difficult race today for us. Kevin with apparent front wing damage, which, actually in our opinion, was a mistake by the FIA to call us out on. The front wing was clearly safe to continue, so we lost half a lap, and that means our race was over, and then obviously to get the tires to work was difficult once we ended up in all the blue flags."

He added:

"It was the same for Mick; the C2 just wasn't working; we didn't get it to work, and we ended up where we ended up. Unfortunately, that was the race before the summer break, but I'm sure we'll regroup and come back in our old form not having issues like this."

Haas are currently eventh in the championship, a strong position considering that they spent the last two years at the back of the grid.