Haas boss Guenther Steiner famously stated he has not watched Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’ docu-series that turned him into an unlikely cult hero for a new wave of Formula 1 fans, but he has read every word of ‘Surviving to Drive’.
The ghost-written book, published in Britain on Thursday and with a foreword by F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali, records Steiner’s 2022 F1 season escapades in a typically unfiltered fashion.
One particular profanity [aka f@ck] appears 351 times in the 280 pages, according to a reviewer who bothered to count, and Steiner has delivered it all in the accent of a man born in German-speaking northern Italy and now resident in North Carolina.
“I did the audiobook so I have proof that I read it,” 58-year-old Steiner told Reuters while admitting his focus had been more on keeping the sound engineer happy than the actual contents.
‘Drive to Survive’, now filming its sixth season for Netflix and credited with turbo-charging the sport’s popularity, transformed Steiner from relative paddock obscurity to a show-stealing phenomenon [in a comical version of Walter White in Breaking Bad, laced with a great deal more profanity.]
F1 fans seeking selfies with the Haas F1 boss are common and just about everywhere
T-shirts adorned with Steiner’s face and familiar catchphrases have sold briskly, with the boss often ambushed by F1 fans seeking selfies – to the occasional embarrassment of his teenage daughter.
“It still puts a smile on my face because it wasn’t by design. I didn’t try to do this. It just happened. If they feel happy, I’m happy for them. If they like what I do, it means that I entertain them and they love it because they spend money to put my face on their chests. When I see it, it still amazes me,” admitted Steiner.
Steiner said the focus on smaller teams like U.S.-owned Haas, who finished eighth in the 2022 F1 World Championship standings and now have Dallas-based MoneyGram as title sponsor, was also of commercial benefit.
“A lot of sponsors say I actually do not want to be associated with the winner because then I’m always second,” he observed. “Because I’m this character now (maybe) that helped to make the decision.”
The Italian first came into the F1 paddock in 2001 when Austria’s late triple world champion Niki Lauda brought him to Ford-owned Jaguar from the world of rallying in a short-lived adventure.
Steiner’s F1 journey began in 2005 around the time Jaguar morphed into Red Bull
He came back in 2005 when Red Bull bought the Jaguar team but then moved to NASCAR, returning to F1 when Haas debuted in 2016.
The book is a rare example of an active F1 boss putting his thoughts into print, however forthright and uncomplimentary. Ralf Schumacher, brother of seven times world champion Michael and uncle of Haas’s dropped former driver Mick, is unlikely to enjoy it.
The pages reveal the growing frustration with Mick’s crashes, which cost the team more than $2 million, and irritation at Ralf’s comments on German television.
Steiner explained: “That was one of the things when we started this project, that was the aim; The honest speaking, speaking about what is happening and not just telling a nice story. There are things which maybe some people don’t like but so is life.
“I did my job and people liked what I did … the idea about the book (was) to follow up a little bit and also to explain to people in an entertaining way a year of what I’m doing. They should see that it’s not all glory in a day of a team principal,” added Steiner. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin)