Guenther Steiners F1 book: The cost of a crash and ignoring Drive to Survive

If you’ve watched “Drive to Survive”, then it will come as little surprise that Guenther Steiner gets just 24 words into his new book before dropping a profanity.

In “Surviving to Drive: A Year Inside Formula 1,” Steiner lifts the lid on life as a Formula One team principal. And from the title alone, it’s clear he’s looking to capitalize on his newfound popularity from the Netflix series. The density of the profanity also matches that of Steiner’s on-screen persona: “fok”, spelled to match his pronunciation, appears 351 times in 280 pages.

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“Surviving to Drive” is essentially Steiner’s diary, starting at the end of the 2021 season and running to the end of 2022. Told in the first person, it takes readers through Haas’s rollercoaster year, covering its split with Nikita Mazepin and title sponsor Uralkali, the return of driver Kevin Magnussen, the high of scoring points in the first race and a shock pole in Brazil, and growing frustration over Mick Schumacher’s crashes and form that led to his exit at the end of 2022.

The book gives us honest, unfiltered Steiner — perhaps the only version of him that exists — and reveals a few choice stories and nuggets of information. Here’s the best of what we learned.

Schumacher’s crashes cost Haas over $2 million in 2022

At the start of 2022, Steiner was optimistic about the year ahead for Mick Schumacher (son of seven-time world champion, Michael), an F1 sophomore. But as time goes on, that turns to frustration over Schumacher’s lack of form compared to teammate Magnussen and his costly series of crashes.

The first big worry for Steiner comes after Schumacher’s crash in Monaco, which split the Haas car in two and resulted in damage Steiner claims came to almost $1 million. It was the second time Schumacher had totaled a car in three months. “The second time it happens you think, ‘Hang on, something’s not right here,’” Steiner writes.

The final straw came in Japan, when Schumacher crashed on an in-lap in practice, when he was supposed to be calmly taking the car back to the pit lane. “It’s just f—– ridiculous,” Steiner writes. “I’m trying not to be too hard on the guy but right now I am seriously pissed off.”

Haas decided ahead of the season finale to drop Schumacher for 2023 in favor of veteran Nico Hülkenberg. In explaining the call, Steiner reveals that Schumacher’s crash damage “totaled over $2 million” and that the incidents could not be discounted in the decision. “I wish I could,” Steiner says. “But I can’t.”

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Steiner highlights Hülkenberg’s experience racing for multiple teams as something that would be valuable for Haas. He also revealed he didn’t call Hülkenberg back after their initial conversation, curious to see how much the German would chase the seat: “Over the next week he must have called me about ten times and it got to a point where I almost told him to f— off.”

There’s no love lost with the Schumacher camp

Steiner moves quite early in the book to dispel suggestions he had a poor relationship with Schumacher. But he admits it was “not a very extensive one,” adding: “I have tried to get to know him a bit better but at the end of the day it takes two to tango.”

Steiner does regularly take aim at Mick’s uncle, Ralf Schumacher, an ex-F1 driver who now works for German TV, for public comments about the situation, including claiming Steiner did not speak with Mick or help him. Ralf is referred to by name once, and thereafter as “Mick’s uncle”. On four occasions in the book, Steiner hits back at comments made by Ralf, at one point writing, “If that’s the best that Mick’s uncle can come up with he should get himself a paper (route) because he’s s— at making headlines.”

More detail about relations with the Schumacher camp comes in the subtext when Steiner explains the decision to drop the young German driver. Steiner starts a new section on his frustration with driver managers — he stresses it is just an opinion — and spends over a page on the topic. There was a degree of tension last year between Haas and Schumacher’s manager, Sabine Kehm, who also worked with Mick’s father through his F1 career. Even without naming names, Steiner makes clear there was friction on that front.

Driver managers typically play an important part in looking after racing drivers’ interests, especially when it comes to contracts and race seats. Kehm has been particularly prevalent in Schumacher’s career to date. He’s since landed a reserve role with Mercedes.

Steiner still hasn’t watched ‘Drive to Survive’ — and probably never will

“Drive to Survive” might have turned Gunther Steiner into something of a cult hero for F1 fans and paved the way for this book, but the man himself hasn’t watched a single minute of it.

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“My fear is that if I watch the show, I won’t like certain aspects of how I behave and will try and change how I do things,” he writes. “I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea but I’m actually OK with who I am. If you don’t like it, tough s—.”

Ever since the show debuted in 2019, Steiner has always been clear that while he embraces its positive impact on F1, he doesn’t understand his own popularity.

A recurring theme in the book is Steiner dealing with excited fans asking for selfies, or wearing occasionally “horrifying” t-shirts with his catchphrases or even his face on the front. “One guy who wanted a selfie was wearing a shirt with nothing but my face on it,” Steiner writes. “Seriously, half his body was completely covered in hundreds of little Gunther heads.”

Bringing back Magnussen was an easy decision

One of the biggest stories involving Haas last year was its decision to terminate the contracts of driver Nikita Mazepin and title sponsor Uralkali during winter testing after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Steiner lays out the decision-making process and does well to capture the feeling in the team at the time as it plotted its next steps.

Turning back to Magnussen, who raced for Haas between 2017 and 2020, is shown to be an easy decision. In the early part of the book before Mazepin’s departure, Steiner visits Daytona for the Rolex 24 and speaks of how much he enjoyed catching up with Magnussen, who was then racing in sports cars. He also claims that part of the decision to let him go after 2020 was for the good of Magnussen’s career, as he knew the 2021 car would be undeveloped and at the back of the grid.

When Gene Haas, the team owner, suggested rehiring him to replace Mazepin, Steiner replied: “You’re a f—– genius, you know that?” Steiner also thought that bringing back Magnussen would “demonstrate to all the guys in the team that we are serious about getting back to the good old days.”

It’s easy for Steiner to praise the decision, which paid off handsomely: Magnussen scored the lion’s share of Haas’s points last year, recording a best finish of fifth in Bahrain, and delivered arguably the greatest moment in the team’s short history with his shock pole in Brazil.

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Steiner does comment at one point he felt Magnussen had been “in a bit of a comfort zone” towards the end of the season due to the lack of challenge from Schumacher. “I’m not saying that he’s been driving down exactly,” he writes. “But at the same time he hasn’t been looking over his shoulder enough.”

Niki Lauda played an important role in mentoring Steiner

Although “Surviving to Drive” focuses on 2022, it does not stop Steiner from telling some stories from earlier in his career.

Some of the most interesting anecdotes relate to Niki Lauda, the three-time F1 world champion who died in 2019. Lauda first brought Steiner into F1, from rallying, in 2001, helping him to run the Jaguar team. Although the project would prove unsuccessful and be sold by Ford to Red Bull in 2004, it gave Steiner experience at F1’s top table and with Lauda’s forthright, honest approach.

Steiner recalls Lauda ringing him up after their first meeting and saying: “Thank you for your time yesterday. You will be working for me.”

It laid the foundation for a friendly, honest friendship that played a big role in shaping Steiner professionally and as a person. “Having the support of somebody like Niki Lauda made you feel like you could do anything,” Steiner writes. “He was inspirational.”

Steiner has led Haas ever since the team joined the grid in 2016, and is clear in his total dedication to the role. “One day I will be too old and will have to stop doing this,” Steiner writes. “My dream is that when I walk away Haas F1 will be a success both on and off the track.”

Steiner has little time for F1’s political games

While Steiner makes clear he’s not interested in double-standards and hypocrisy of F1’s “piranha club,” he tackles one debate head-on. Since joining the grid in 2016, Haas has faced scrutiny over its relationship with Ferrari, through which it enjoys as much technical support as it possibly can within the rules. Early last year, McLaren was quite vocal about its concerns over “B-teams,” leading to some friction with Haas. Steiner’s annoyance over its comments are clear, particularly in an exchange where then-McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl laughs at him: “I then told him exactly what would happen if he laughed at me again and he stopped,” Steiner writes.

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You get an idea of who Steiner’s allies and closest friends are in the book. He speaks warmly of ex-Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto and his replacement, Fred Vasseur. At one stage, he ponders holding a boxing match between the team principals to spice up boring races.

“I’m not sure who would be the toughest,” writes Steiner. “I’ve known Christian (Horner) a long time and used to work with him at Red Bull. He could be pretty tough. Then again, he’s married to a Spice Girl now. Otmar (Szafnauer) at Alpine looks like he could be pretty useful also. He’s a big guy.”

“Surviving to Drive” by Gunther Steiner is available from April 20.

Top photo of Guenther Steiner: Martin Keep/AFP via Getty Images)

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