Hi I have a stupid question, and I hope you can help me. So I see a lot of hate for Haas, Guenther and Gene on social media, but I don't really understand why. Sure there have been some issues in the team with Mick, bit I haven't seen anything out of line or malicious.
I've mostly seen Mick fans wish destruction on Haas and their team principal, but no real reason as to why. But my understanding is also that there is a lot of bad press from sky Germany on Haas, to the point of spreading false information to their viewers on the treatment of Mick and Kevin at Haas, eg. The recent qualifying were they said that Kevin godt slick tires before Mick, so it had to be debunked by Twitter.
Maybe I'm just reaching, but I just don't understand the need to harass a team that essentially gave Mick his first seasons at f1 and might even continue to do so.
thank you for your question! i was debating whether to make a post about it, but i really like your question, so i will use this to make the post. below is my full answer to this. i will tag mick since it's relevant but be advised, it might not be the most pleasant reading for hardcore mick fans.
long story short: haas is a no bullshit team, guenther is a very warm but also brutally honest man who expects the best from you. he has a temper. but this has been the case since 2016 with every driver the team has had. if you mess up, he will tell you. if you do a good job, he will also tell you. i know kevin appreciates this because as he says "you know where you have him", which is a stark contrast to other team principals who will tell you one thing only to suddenly stab you in the back.
i think some mick fans misunderstand guenther. because he is so honest, sometimes to a fault, they believe other teams would not treat mick the same. i can assure you other teams would likely do something even worse, which would be that they would praise mick and then drop him without much warning. personally, i would like to know where i can improve and be quite clear about my chances to keep my seat.
one of the biggest reasons kevin accepted the haas seat was because of guenther. they work well together and they understand each other. kevin has said multiple times that guenther cares a lot about all the employees and that he knows everything about everyone but in a good way. he will talk the same way to you, no matter if you are part of the cleaning staff, an engineer or a driver. guenther is not a horrible person, he is not mean. he is honest with a temper. he can say some brutal stuff in the heat of the moment, but he will always apologise for it afterwards.
i personally believe haas is no place for rookies - and i think that's alright. mick and m*zepin were their first rookies, and i think they will be their last. guenther wants people to perform immediately. which is totally fine, but not something that can be expected of rookies.
i will also say haas has been getting some unnecessary flack from mick stans. every time he does not do well, they blame it on strategy. sometimes mick doesn't get the job done, and other times the car just does not have the pace, many times it's also down to bad luck. but i understand why it can be easier to just blame the team instead of the circumstances.
haas is a small team, they have always struggled a little with strategy, it happens to both of their drivers. they make mistakes, it's annoying and frustrating, but that comes with being a small team. mick has mainly been in prema before this, a large team in the respective feeder series, so i think his fans have gotten quite a shock seeing the reality of what it is like being a driver for a small team in f1.
during the start of summer i believe, sky germany basically did an interview with guenther where they forced him to comment on mick's performance despite him not wanting to. they really went over the line in that interview and guenther got angry and then finally said his opinion about mick. this was earlier on in the year where mick was not good, so of course, he could not say positive things. he did not say anything horrible, just that they were not happy with mick crashing that much, and then all the mick stans ran with that and made it seem like guenther bullied mick. since then, it's just been non-stop both from the stans and guenther & gene. sky germany opened a can of worms that day, which probably has not been in mick's favour.
should guenther and gene have said some of the things they did publicly? probably not. have the media and fans been absolutely hounding them about mick at any given opportunity? yes. were the things guenther & gene said false? no. mick has cost the team a lot of money due to crashing, money haas cannot afford to spend on repairs when they needed to develop the car. mick's crashes caused a bottleneck to happen at the factory which delayed their upgrades, so they have had very real consequences. mick has cost haas close to 5 million dollars by crashing all on his own, kevin has cost them close to 400k. there is a huge difference there. mick also topped the sheet of most expensive damage done last year, so it's not a one-off, which is what seems to concern haas the most.
and i know, haas has cost him some points, but haas has also cost kevin plenty of points and he has still managed to get points in 9 races compared to mick getting points in 2 races. and kevin has even suffered more mechanical dnfs than mick during the season. and he would maybe have scored points at interlagos, but unfortunately, daniel ruined all chances of that.
some mick stans went way too far on social media, they even went so far that the admin several times put them in their place. like haas has not been allowed to make a single post about kevin without comments like the one you see below. haas is much more than mick schumacher. they were a team before him - and they will be a team after him. no driver is bigger than the team. mick stans have really pushed the narrative that haas never praise him, which is just not true, as can easily be proved by reading the race reports they do after the races. guenther even highlighted mick's great performance in the sprint despite the interviewer only asking about kevin.
and then there have been all the posts about them favouring kevin, which has just been such bullshit. as you pointed out, they even lied about kevin getting pulled in first to get slicks on during the qualification. haas favours the driver most likely to get points. there have been plenty of times when mick has been called in to pit first and where it has benefitted him. and it has been fair because he was ahead at the time, one of the times it even cost kevin points, but he did not complain about it even once. the mick stans have criticised haas for playing it too safe, for being too risky, for splitting the strategy etc. despite all these things being normal in a team. i think the best example of this was austin. kevin drove almost 40 laps on tyres that were supposed to last 20 laps, he was the only one of the twenty drivers to do this. it was an insane strategy that should not have worked. mick was on the strategy with the most probability of working. and yet some mick stans absolutely tore haas to shreds over it, saying they favoured kevin, but if kevin's plan had failed (yes, he was the one who came up with it) then mick fans would have been pleased. but this is the thing, no one can predict everything in formula 1. haas as a team has been so fucking unlucky, it's actually been almost comical, and of course, this has also affected kevin and mick. it's a shame but it's not the fault of haas that they have been screwed by a safety car 5 times this season, it's out of their hands. as i said, haas has made mistakes, but both drivers have suffered because of it.
and finally, no driver is owed anything by f1 teams. this sport is brutal. if you want proof of that, go read up on kevin's time in mclaren. believe me, it will show you just how merciless f1 is. but in the end, it is the team who pays them wages, the team who gives them a rare opportunity in f1, and the team who suffers from the mistakes they make. we can have opinions about the drivers, but we cannot say haas owe a driver a seat. they are allowed to choose whoever they want to fill their seats. do i think mick is a good driver? yes, i do. he has really improved throughout the season and i believe he will probably find his way back into f1 at some point. but he is not the right fit for haas and i'm pretty sure they will announce that he will be replaced by hulkenberg. and i am sad as i will miss kevin and mick being buddies. i doubt he will have as much fun with nico, but i will not miss all the undeserved hate towards haas and kevin.
Also can we just put some mf'ing respect on Kevin's name? He could have reacted in any way - flipped out, gotten rightfully mad or slandered Ricciardo's name to hell and he did none of that. He knew it wasn't done on purpose, accepted his apology and didn't hold Daniel to it. Instead he took the loss as it was, heartbreaking of course
And that's how Kevin is you'll find, if you've followed him as a person or have listened to any of his interviews. He can apologise when he makes a genuine mistake and at the same time accept one and move on professionally
Just a reminder to all those that still want to drag the tired old trope of Kevin being an immature and dangerous driver up, the second he goes from doing good and being the hero to making a mistake or misjudgement and becomes the villain once again. Becuse that will happen. His character doesn't change even if the f1 fans' does
First pole position for a Ferrari powered customer team since Sebastian Vettel’s Monza pole in 2008 (in the Toro Rosso) and the second ever pole for a Ferrari customer team.
Ridiculous how people are hopping on and off the Kevin-train.
The same people who were yelling two years ago, how Haas needed to get rid of him, were hyping him up the last weeks just to go back into the Kevin-is-a-bad-and-mean-driver narrative after one accident.
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