Haas team boss Günther Steiner has responded to accusations that he is ‘too self-promotional’ and does not allow criticism of his own person before the Formula 1 weekend in Abu Dhabi. Comments like this have come after his involvement, and now media battle, in the squabble for the second Haas F1 cockpit.

Haas, however, now announced that Nico Hülkenberg will drive in Formula 1 again from next season, taking over the cockpit from his compatriot Mick Schumacher.

The contract with the 23-year-old was not renewed, to the displeasure of many fans and also some Formula 1 experts, despite recent stronger performances.

“I’m doing a good job”

“I think I’m just trying to do a good job,” Steiner told Sky UK. “If people are happy with that, it’s not about attention, it’s not about my attention. I’m doing a job and people are taking notice.”

“I can’t say ‘don’t look at me’, I mean I’m not doing it on purpose. So I don’t think I have to defend myself here. Everybody can do and say what they want, and I do what I want. Not what I want, but what I think is best for the team, and I want to leave it at that.”

Ralf Schumacher’s accusations against Steiner

One of the critics, Sky Sports Germany pundit Ralf Schumacher, accused the Haas team boss, for example, of putting his nephew’s performance in a bad light in public, while self-inflicted mistakes by the team, such as with the strategy, are not criticised with the same severity.

He justified this by saying that Steiner is “a bit of a self-promoter” who “doesn’t like to be criticised himself”, no doubt justifying his opinions based on Steiner’s relatively recent popularity from the Formula 1 Netflix show, Drive to survive.

Despite the sacking, however, Steiner stresses that he has no quarrel with Mick:

“This is not an issue for me with Mick. I have clarified that we are very good together with him. And I know that he is not and that this has nothing to do with him.”

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