According to Team Principal Guenther Steiner, the Haas Formula One team is not in a rush to clinch a new significant sponsor arrangement.
Earlier this year, during pre-season testing, Haas split from title sponsor Uralkali due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a result, it severed ties with Nikita Mazepin, the company’s driver, whose father owns Uralkali.
After splitting with Rich Energy midway through the 2019 season, it was the second title sponsor scandal for Haas in the recent few years.
Haas Formula 1 team boss Guenther Steiner claims that Haas can function without title sponsor funding and that the team is looking for the appropriate offer before signing a contract.
“We are looking for sponsors, there is a lot of movement. But we don’t want to jump immediately onto the next one,” he said.
“We want to take our time, we want to do our due diligence, make a good decision. We are in a safe place at the moment, so there’s no point to rush into anything which we may regret in six months’ time.”
“We will be OK without it [money]. There is always need for money obviously, this should be a business and not a money-wasting machine,” Steiner added.
“But in the end you need to do the right thing. Sometimes waiting for the right thing will help you in the mid-to-long term.”
“That’s what our focus is on. The team is in a good position now with performance, now we need to make commercially good decisions.”
Any serious parties interested in the team, according to Steiner, will be willing to wait several months to finalise a deal.
“We are waiting for the best package. It’s a combination of things, the best offer, the best sponsor,” Steiner said.
“Maybe you take a deal today which you find out in six months you shouldn’t have done that. It’s sometimes attractive – ‘oh we need to do it in two weeks to get ready’ – and all that stuff.
“It’s sometimes better to sit back and say ‘let’s talk with these people correctly and see’.
“Because if someone is really interested, they can wait three to six months. It’s not a rush. And if the deal, we think, is not good enough going forward, we don’t have to do a deal this year. It’s not a must.”
