Last week Haas announced Steiner, who 💧had led the US-based team for the past decade, was leaving his role with immediate effect൲ ahead of the 2024 season. 

Amid speculation of aꦬ disagreement between Steiner and Haas team owner Gene Haas, Marko says he heard a rumour that the Italian was trying to cash in on his celebrity status as a star of Netflix’s Drive to Survive series. 

“Let’s put it this way: anyone who becomes too popular through a documentary like Netflix tends to take off. But if you fly too high too fast, you also crash faste🌠r,” Marko told F1-Insider.com. 

“I’ve on🌄ly heard that he wanted to convert his popularity into shares in the team. And that no longer appealed to owner Gene Haas.

“It is also the case in our sport that the team always takes preceden⭕ce over the individual. Steiner became a victim of his popularity.”

Speaking for the ⭕first time since his shock exit at the Autosport International Show 🀅on Saturday, Steiner admitted he did not see the exit coming.

Asked if he was ever thought his new-found popularity might become a problem within Haas, Steiner told Sky F1: "Not really, but thinking back now, it cou🐲ld have.

"But in the end that𒁃 celebrity gave the team a lot of exposure, brought in very good sponsors likeဣ MoneyGram because they liked that because they could use that [profile].

"There are always positi💝ves and negatives to any deal so maybe there were some positives and somebody brou💫ght up the negatives.

"These are things you cannot always plan for because I was n🔯ot out there trying to look for celebrity. It happened to me and only the people who know me know that, so I'm ok with that.”

Steiner added: "I didn't get up in the morning to be a celebrity. I get up in the morning to work. But I think it worked a lot in favour of thꦡe team because without that maybe it would have been closed before."