Speaking from Brno, the former Haas team principal said the single biggest shift from Formula 1 to the premier class of motorcycle racing is how far up the pyramid he now sits, and how much he has had to let go.
“I managed everything from the bottom up” at Haas, Steiner told Motorsport Week, whereas “here, up to the middle, I have Nico doing it.”
The reference is to Tech3’s on-site team leadership, which handles the day-to-day racing operation while Steiner concentrates on commercial deals, contracts and, above all, the rider line-up.
His verdict on the paddock crew he inherited was blunt.
“They don’t need me. They are doing a better job than me going racing.”
From Haas principal to Tech3 owner
Steiner completed a consortium-led buy-out of Tech3 that took effect at the start of 2026, replacing long-time owner Herve Poncharal, who founded the team in 1990 and stayed on in a consultancy role. The official announcement in Barcelona in September 2025 named Steiner as CEO and Richard Coleman as team principal, with the outfit continuing as a KTM customer squad.
At Haas, Steiner was principal and de facto operational chief for eight seasons. At Tech3 he is the owner, and the trackside job belongs to somebody else.
His stated value to the team is upstream: contacts, contracts and rider decisions, plus experience of navigating regulation changes, in this case the 2027 technical rules that MotoGP is preparing for.
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Picking riders is a different game
Rider selection is where Steiner has admitted the steepest learning curve. He has told The Race that MotoGP’s talent-scouting culture is nothing like the one he left behind.
“I think this industry is not as sophisticated. There is a lot of, ‘I know this guy, therefore I push him,'” he told The Race in July.
“The scouts, they see these people coming up. Also, their character, their personality, all that counts as well. How they deal with difficult situations. And that is a lot less sophisticated here than in F1.”
His method has been to talk to as many people as he can and back his own read.
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“I try to make a picture for myself. Will it be a perfect picture? Maybe not. But again, I think I can judge what people say.”
Turned down F1 for a clean sheet
Steiner has said several times that he was not short of Formula 1 opportunities but wanted a clean sheet.
“Formula 1 is at the stage [where] I’ve done it, I’ve been there long enough, so I [wanted to] do something new,” he told Motorsport.com shortly after the Tech3 deal was unveiled.
The sport itself, he has added, is more rider-driven than anything he saw in a single-seater paddock.
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“It’s unbelievable how up and down it can be, it depends on the rider,” he told GPblog earlier in the year.
“You need to be a special breed to do this.”
Tech3 fields its 2026 KTM line-up as the MotoGP season resumes at the Red Bull Ring after the summer break.
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