Last week, Motorsport.com revealed that Haas had rejected a request from former title sponsor Uralkali for a return of their investment after unilaterally terminating their deal due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Given this situation, Uralkali wanted Haas to return 13 million dollars, but now the team claims more than 8 million as compensation for the sponsor’s loss of benefits.
Steiner, Haas ‘ F1 boss, declined to comment on the matter, saying he wanted to respect the confidentiality of the ongoing legal process. However, after confirming that there were a number of sponsors interested in filling the financial vacuum left by Uralkali, Steiner made it clear that he would not be looking to rush into signing a major new deal.
“There’s a lot of movement, but we don’t want to immediately jump to the next one,” Steiner introduced.
“We want to take our time and make a good decision,” he added. “There’s no point in rushing into something that we might regret six months from now.”
Before parting ways with Uralkali, Haas had another run-in with his sponsor Rich Energy in 2019. The deal between the two sides ended after 14 races, weeks after former Rich Energy CEO William Storey announced on Twitter that the deal would end. had canceled due to the “poor performance” of the team.
Asked if the controversy surrounding Uralkali and Rich Energy has prompted greater caution in the future, Steiner replied: “Obviously, we live and learn from things that happen.”
Steiner felt that if the interest of a potential major sponsor was serious enough, there would be no need to rush into any deals, giving more time to complete due diligence.
He also explained that the sponsorship agreement does not depend solely on economic figures.
“We’re waiting for a good combination of things,” Steiner added. “It’s about the best offer, the best sponsor, and not doing something where we take a deal today and find out in six months we shouldn’t have done it.”
“Sometimes it’s a mistake to want to do it in two weeks to ‘get ready.’ Sometimes it’s better to sit down and get the deal right.”
“If the agreement we think is not good enough to go ahead, we do not have to make an agreement this year. It is not an obligation,” he assured, before confirming that “things are coming, but they have to be correct.”
