F1 team boss reveals he was fired at the deli counter: 'I was buying my ham'

Otmar Szafnauer, Guenther Steiner, Fred Vasseur — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

F1 team boss reveals he was fired at the deli counter: 'I was buying my ham'

[Insert ham-related joke here]

Chris Deeley

Monday 17 August 2026 15:33

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Former F1 team boss Guenther Steiner has revealed exactly where he was and what he was doing when he got the call to tell him he had been let go.

Team owner Gene Haas called up the outspoken team principal while he was at the supermarket – specifically at the deli counter, he revealed on the High Performance Podcast network – to let him know that his contract wouldn't be renewed.

Steiner also admitted that he wasn't surprised to get the call from the American team owner, saying their relationship had been going downhill in part because he vocally disagreed with the direction the team was taking.

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He did also take credit for the team's massive improvement in 2024, the season immediately after his departure, insisting that the groundwork laid by him and some others who left (including technical director Simone Resta) was what sparked that turnaround.

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Steiner: I was picking up my ham for the night

Having already revealed that he was at the supermarket when he got the call from Haas, Steiner added: "I was at the deli counter picking up my ham for the night, or salami.

"My wife was with me, we were there and it was quite funny. I said 'I'm not with Haas anymore', and she said 'how do you mean?', you know, in the supermarket, on the cell phone.

"'Okay, and? It's okay', we went home, had dinner, I slept perfectly and I was even happier the next morning when I got up because for me, a new world opened, and I just wanted to move on with life."

When asked if he was surprised to receive the call ending his time with the team, he said: "No, no, no, because the relationship wasn't good there for a while. It was not what it was at the beginning, because I didn't agree with the vision of the team.

"I know myself well enough, if I don't agree with something I'm not very collaborative. I tried to fix it, I had ideas to fix it and all that, but it was not welcome to have ideas."

F1 Haas Guenther Steiner