Steiner: F1 is too reactive to good or bad races

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says Formula 1 must avoid being “too reactive” in the short term over racing and look to produce “the most exciting sport in the world” over a full season.

After F1 was hit by a wave of backlash following a dull French Grand Prix, the sport has enjoyed four consecutive races full of excitement and drama.

With F1 rule-makers eager to continue to inject fresh interest using the 2021 rules shake-up, Steiner has warned against kneejerk changes or forgetting the key issues the sport is trying to improve.

“We need to be conscious that we have good shows and never forget that we don’t want to kill it,” Steiner said. “We had four good shows, we still need to keep on making it better, a level playing field, because this can be the most exciting sport in the world.

“We never have to forget that just because we have four good races that means everything is good now, let’s go again and give penalties and someone with a billion budget and living in this dreamworld.

“We had four good ones but there’s always the risk that we have four bad ones and then we complain. We are too reactive to it.”

Instead, Steiner wants F1 to look at a full season of exciting racing and repeated his key step by implementing a team budget cap to help level the competitive playing field.

“I think the bigger picture is four good ones, thank you, but we want 21 or 22 good ones,” he said. “That’s what I’d be trying to focus on, to have them all good and then work towards it.

“Not because we had four good ones we calm down and say ‘it’s good now’ and then we come up and say ‘oh it’s bad, what do we do now’ and just be up and down reactive.

“We need to keep the big picture and for me, the big picture is the budget cap, which is coming.”