TGR Haas F1 Team

Gene Haas's decision to enter Formula One was driven by a desire to promote his machine tool empire, Haas Automation, on the global stage. A successful NASCAR team owner through Stewart-Haas Racing, Haas understood motorsport but knew that F1 was an entirely different animal. His approach was characteristically pragmatic: rather than building everything from scratch, Haas struck a groundbreaking partnership with Ferrari that allowed the new team to purchase as many non-listed parts as the regulations allowed. It was a model that traditionalists sneered at but proved remarkably effective.

The team's debut season in 2016 exceeded all expectations. Romain Grosjean scored points on his very first race for the team in Australia, finishing sixth in a result that stunned the paddock. The Frenchman's experience and technical feedback, combined with the Ferrari partnership, gave Haas a competitiveness that no new team had achieved in the modern era. Guenther Steiner, the team's Italian-born team principal with a thick South Tyrolean accent and a gift for colorful language, quickly became one of the sport's most recognizable personalities.

The 2018 season represented the high-water mark of this initial period, with Haas finishing fifth in the Constructors' Championship. The car was genuinely quick, and both Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen regularly fought in the points-paying positions. However, the team struggled with race-day execution, and a series of pit stop disasters at the 2018 Australian Grand Prix became a painful symbol of the operational growing pains that came with being a young team. Despite these setbacks, Haas had established itself as a legitimate midfield competitor far faster than anyone had predicted.

The 2019 season proved more difficult, as the team struggled to understand the behavior of its tyres and the car's performance fluctuated wildly from circuit to circuit. The pattern of strong qualifying pace but poor race pace became a frustrating recurring theme. Nevertheless, the foundations had been laid for an American team to survive and compete in Formula One, something that had eluded every other attempt in the modern era.

The 2020 and 2021 seasons were among the most difficult in the team's history, both on and off the track. The arrival of Nikita Mazepin and the associated Uralkali title sponsorship in 2021 brought significant financial backing but also enormous controversy. Mazepin, the son of Russian oligarch Dmitry Mazepin, was a divisive figure whose on-track incidents and off-track controversies generated constant negative headlines. Alongside rookie Mick Schumacher, the son of seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, the team fielded its least experienced driver lineup ever.

The 2021 car was uncompetitive by design, as Haas made the strategic decision to abandon development of the current-regulation car and invest all resources into the radical new 2022 regulations. The result was a season spent almost exclusively at the back of the grid, with Mazepin and Schumacher battling each other rather than the rest of the field. It was painful viewing, but the logic was sound: sacrifice the present for a better future.

Everything changed in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Haas immediately terminated its sponsorship deal with Uralkali and dropped Nikita Mazepin, acting faster and more decisively than almost any other organization in sport. Kevin Magnussen was recalled from retirement as a replacement, and in a fairy-tale return, the Dane qualified fifth and finished fifth at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. The 2022 car proved significantly more competitive, vindicating the team's decision to focus on the new regulations. Throughout this turbulent period, Netflix's Drive to Survive made Guenther Steiner and Haas the breakout stars of the show, with Steiner's profanity-laden team radio messages and unfiltered personality winning fans worldwide.