Haas team boss Guenther Steiner believes the current bizarre goings-on at title sponsor Rich Energy is not impacting their image.
Just before the British Grand Prix weekend, the drinks company tweeted they had cut ties with the American outfit citing their poor performance in Austria two weeks ago.
However, that was late rubbished by their investors who blamed the “rogue actions” of an individual for the statement.
It has since emerged though that the Rich Energy Twitter is handled by CEO William Storey, whom the investors are trying to oust from his position.
This was then followed by a tweet suggesting a “coup” was taking place run by individuals close to Red Bull, their natural competition, and Whytes Bikes, who recently won a logo copyright case against the company.
Amid all this Haas has continued on and Steiner told ESPN that the situation was being resolved behind the scenes.
“We are discussing with them now,” he said. “As you can imagine, we are not in control of what they do internally and neither do we want to be!
“They are sorting out what happens there and then the team [of investors] that wants to take over, they want to continue, and that is what we are talking about in the next few weeks: How do we continue with them.
“They know they need to agree between them before we go forward. I have no comment and no knowledge of what is going on there and I do not need to know.”
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With the less than transparent nature of Rich Energy’s emergence into F1, with financial details of their deal with Haas requested via a court order, Steiner also downplayed any reputation issues.
“There is a clear line between them paying us for advertising and us doing our job,” he stated.
“So I don’t think we are damaged as a team because as a company Haas has done nothing wrong. We have not done anything wrong, we have done everything by the book, so actually, it gives us a good reputation because we didn’t react because we cannot.
“I think we are in a good position and we have shown the world that — even with controversy outside of us — we are not doing things that we shouldn’t be doing.
“We work professionally and keep out of things we cannot control and are not entitled to control. So we just go along and whatever happens, happens.”
