Steiner: 'We’ve made a big step over the last two years'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
It was a remarkable moment during the official launch of the Las Vegas Grand Prix last Saturday. The moment event presenters called Günther Steiner onto the stage, loud cheers erupted, fans in attendance grabbed their mobile phones en masse to take a picture of 'rock star' Steiner.
It was not Lewis Hamilton, George Russell or Sergio Perez who turned out to be the eye-catchers in Las Vegas, the Haas team boss was. Steiner has captured star status thanks to the Netflix series Drive to Survive. Everywhere he goes, he has to take photos with fans and hand out autographs. His Haas team probably benefits from the fame, as the Americans recently managed to secure a new title sponsor with Moneygram.
Under the budget cap
Haas F1 had failed to maximise the budget cap this season, especially after the debacle with Uralkali. The Russian sponsor was sidelined after the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Yet Haas had been noticing increasing interest in the team from sponsors for some time. That is why the team hired a new marketing director at the beginning of the year, which seems to ensure that Haas, too, benefits from the huge interest in the sport worldwide.
"We’ve made a big step over the last two years – when we were where we were, we got a lot better in certain things", Steiner told Racer. "We got better at finding sponsors. You see now the sponsors on the car… I think we did a big step." Steiner believes that American sponsors first wanted to see if F1 was a sport that keeps the intention of fans over the longterm. Now they see F1 is a good place to be visible. According to Steiner, Moneygram is a forerunner in this.