Gene Haas “embarrassed” by his team’s poor F1 form

The American has also opened up on his reasons for not renewing the contract of team principal Guenther Steiner, and for promoting Ayao Komatsu to the role rather than taking on an outsider.

The team announced the shock changes on Wednesday, while also confirming that technical director Simone Resta had left.

Ferrari supplies the team with not just a power unit and gearbox but also suspension and other mechanical items that the FIA regulations allow teams to share.

However, while the works outfit had a car that logged pole positions and won the only race of 2023 that didn’t fall to Red Bull, Haas tumbled to the bottom of the pecking order.

“Ferrari has been very good to us,” Haas told the Formula 1 website. “They have been with us since day one, they build incredible engines. Their suspension is extremely good. We have been using a lot of their hardware.

“It works really well. They really do help us. I’m embarrassed that we haven’t been able to do better with it, but going forward, I want to take advantage of good equipment that a lot of other teams don’t have.

“Things are going to get a lot more competitive. Red Bull have AlphaTauri, we’re starting to see these relationships evolve, and I think the competition is going to be very intense, so having a partner like Ferrari is going to be very important.”

He added: “I talk to a lot of the engineers, and I think our biggest failing is aero; our aero programme needs work. When you’re at the track and you’re humiliated every weekend, I’m going to stop taking that one anymore.”

Expanding on the departure of Steiner, he insisted that changes were needed in an attempt to raise the team’s level.

“It came down to performance,” he said. “Here we are in our eighth year, over 160 races – we have never had a podium. The last couple of years, we’ve been 10th or ninth.

“I’m not sitting here saying it’s Guenther’s fault, or anything like that, but it just seems like this was an appropriate time to make a change and try a different direction, because it doesn’t seem like continuing with what we had is really going to work.

“I like Guenther, he’s a really nice person, a really good personality. We had a tough end to the year. I don’t understand that, I really don’t. Those are good questions to ask Guenther, what went wrong. At the end of the day, it’s…