Guenther Steiner: Out The Door
If you were to tally up each word…
in Guenther Steiner’s latest book, ‘fok’ would be one of the most used. The unique spelling, done to represent Steiner’s distinctive accent and also appease book publishers, no doubt, is featured on almost every page.
Steiner was not the first to coin this term in written form. After a particular episode of Drive to Survive in which he fumed about his driver Kevin Magnussen slamming a door, T-shirts soon appeared with Steiner’s face printed on them – trademark aviators on – and the words ‘he does not fok smash my door’ printed in big letters. It is not the only T-shirt made with his face on it.
Born in the northern Italian town of Merano, Steiner holds dual citizenship in the US and Italy and due to his hometown being close to the border of Switzerland and Austria, he speaks fluent Italian, English and German. Steiner comes from the mountains and as Austrian Toto Wolff likes to jokingly point out, those mountain dwellers find it “difficult to think clearly” given how thin the air is.
By all measures then, this mountain dweller had no right to be an international TV star, the face of one of the biggest shows on the planet and a docu-series that changed the way one of the oldest sports was portrayed.
Steiner’s early career saw him move to Belgium to work for the Mazda rally team. He then hopped from various teams before being promoted to director of engineering at Ford, working with famous rally drivers such as Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz Sr, father of the future Ferrari driver. A two-decade career in the series ended when a famous Austrian reached out to see if Steiner wanted to become managing director of the Ford-owned Jaguar F1 team. That Austrian was Niki Lauda, and the three-time World Champion would become a guiding voice in Steiner’s career. Steiner’s time at Jaguar ended in 2003 but it was not long before he was in the same Milton Keynes base only this time the name above the door was not Jaguar but Red Bull Racing. Appointed as technical operations director, it led to an unlikely early meeting with Christian Horner.
But in April 2008, his time at Red Bull came to a close and that appeared to be that – the final act of his F1 career. He moved to America, where he holds citizenship, and set up a composite company with a friend, another life goal waiting to be achieved.
In another universe, that would have been Steiner’s life. Creating a business in any field is no small achievement and having survived the first couple of years, Steiner and his partner could start to look forward to some greener pastures, but things were to change when a potential customer reached out, enquiring if Steiner’s company could help them with a new venture they were working on – starting a Formula 1 team.
F1 in America had long been an up and down relationship. Phill Hill winning the world title in 1961 and then Mario Andretti doing the same in 1978 was the highs of an otherwise apathetic attitude towards the sport. While the rest of the world saw open-wheel single-seater formula racing as the pinnacle, in the US it had to contend with series like NASCAR and IndyCar which had gripped the American public’s consciousness far more than F1 ever had.
With a population of 320 million, cracking the US market was a lucrative prospect and plenty had tried but in 2009, a journalist and former technical director joined together to launch US F1 which they hoped would be the first American team on track since Haas Lola in 1986.
They reached out to Steiner’s company to help build parts for the potential car but ultimately the US F1 dream was dead on arrival. They were granted entry to the 2010 season but never made it to the starting grid. Although a costly failure for those funding it, for Steiner it would provide him with the idea that would change his life. What US F1 lacked was the connections to make an American team work, the kind of connections that Steiner himself had.
With the gift of not needing it to work and the time that afforded, Steiner spent three years looking for potential investors before finding his man.
“You just try but it wasn't something I needed to do,” he told Pitch. “I wanted to do it, but it's like if it didn't happen, you're relaxed about that. I got the feeling [it could happen] for the first time meeting Gene, I was not sure if he wanted to do it or he didn't and after a while, I realised that the guy is actually interested in doing it, and now he's just testing me to see if I'm actually capable.”
Gene Haas, or Gene as Steiner refers to him throughout his new book, is the money behind the Haas team. The person who it is named after and ultimately the person who has final say, which Steiner would discover to his detriment years down the line. Owner of the tool manufacturer Haas Automation, Gene said little when the two met but soon Steiner’s phone began to ring. Questioning this, questioning that. Gene never went too long before calling up Steiner for his latest query, a theme that would continue for the length of their working relationship.
“Once he figured that actually I knew what I was doing, he said yes,” Steiner recalls. “What I always told him was if you don't want to do it, I'm fine. You cannot sell this. Somebody needs to want to buy it. Somebody needs to convince himself. “Now it's obviously different. There is a queue out the door wanting to buy F1 teams. Now everybody wants one, but it was very strange thinking back. After about six hours of talking with Gene, I realised he's actually pretty serious about it.”With Gene's blessing (and money), Haas was born for the 2016 season. A new name amongst the established elites of Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, and Steiner’s former team Red Bull.
These days, all 10 teams are under the microscope. One bad race and your job is on the line. But back in 2016, the F1 paddock was more similar to any meet of a racing series. A chance to see old friends, have a cup of tea and then go racing. This relaxed nature gave Steiner a blessing. His Haas team could sneak onto the grid and largely stay out of the public spotlight. “I remember it was very, very weird at the time,” Steiner said of Haas’ first race, the 2016 Australian Grand Prix in which they scored points. “The attention was not as high as it would be now.
“There were a few teams which were lingering around. Nobody really cared about the small teams because they come and go but now it would be different, because it's much more structured and it's only eight years later, if you think how quick it developed,” the 59-year-old continues in the distinctive cadence of his Germanic-sounding twang.
One of the key reasons behind that change was Drive to Survive, a first of its kind fly-on-the-wall look under the hood of F1. Under Bernie Ecclestone, Formula 1 was a closed shop. Entrance into the paddock came because you knew someone who knew someone and the supremo was always deeply sceptical of new age technology like social media. Clips of the sport posted online were struck for copyright and removed almost as soon as someone had clicked the word tweet. The sport’s drivers were faceless men behind helmets with only the true greats able to shine through and become recognisable characters.
But in 2016, that all changed. Ecclestone sold up with American media company Liberty Media purchasing Formula One Management for $8 billion. With it being one of the biggest fees ever paid in sports ownership, it was a gamble, no question, but eight years later said roll of the dice has already paid off.
Liberty’s first goal was to make the sport more appealing to an American audience and to do that, they needed to lift the lid on the drivers. The F1 paddock was no longer kept behind a velvet rope and soon, Netflix cameras began to show up. The footage they captured would go on to transform the lives of almost everyone involved in the sport. F1 became a global sport, no longer was it a niche activity but now the biggest stars were as recognisable as football players, NFL players and basketball players. The exposure went beyond the drivers too and faces that would normally go unnoticed became familiar across the globe – none more so than Steiner.
Netflix arrived for the 2018 season, but Steiner recalls a great deal of scepticism. Ferrari and Mercedes did not take part in the first season, McLaren did but only reluctantly. Steiner meanwhile saw it as nothing more than a typical interview with the press.
“I had no idea what it was or when that first sit-down interview was, it was just like sitting down with you here, just being filmed, you know?” Steiner recalls. “I had no idea what it would bring, no idea and I think nobody had any idea. If somebody comes out and says ‘yeah, I knew Drive to Survive was going to be big’ it's bullshit.
“It was ‘yeah, let's do it. I mean, who cares, you know?’ and nobody had, in my opinion, the vision to say this will be a game changer, no one.”
A game changer it was. Tuning in to watch the 2018 season were 490.2 million people, all watching Steiner run the show from the comfort of their front rooms. That figure was 1.55bn in 2021 seeing the American-Italian go from unknown to cult hero, unable to walk near an F1 paddock without being swarmed.
“When the first years came out, it was pretty quick,” Steiner said of his sudden fame. “We went to Australia [for the first race] and people on the plane watched it. It was weird. I didn't know what to do with it. All of a sudden, every man and his dog seemed to seem to know me.
“You get used to it. It's not like everybody spots you but if I walk through London, sometimes you get stopped by 10 people, sometimes by two. The potential of somebody knowing you is pretty high.” Steiner shared the limelight with the likes of Daniel Ricciardo and Christian Horner but if the producers of Drive to Survive could have predicted that a hot-shot charismatic driver and a rent-a-quote team principal would be stars, Steiner was a welcome surprise.
The reason audiences gravitated towards Steiner was his uncompromising, tell it how it is, character. His book is filled with answers and opinions that could have been far more political, far more reserved, but Steiner has never been like that. He has had numerous run-ins during his F1 career. With the FIA, other teams, drivers (and their uncles) and most notably Gene. Pick any series and you will see a stressed Steiner on the phone, telling Gene that they were “shit” or looked like a “bunch of fucking wankers.” To such an extent that there’s a YouTube video titled “Guenther Steiner carrying Drive To Survive for 4 minutes 40 seconds straight” with 1.1 million views at time of writing.
If the other team principals had been perfectly crafted, Steiner was a rough and ready character.
Toto Wolff featured in one season dressed in a Steve Jobs-esque black turtleneck. Steiner appeared bent down on one knee next to a model boat. An instant memeable image.
But while the likes of Max Verstappen complain that Netflix distorts the truth so much that it is barely recognisable, Steiner’s portrayal is the most true of all. Bigger teams may have requested that their most embarrassing moments were not broadcast to a global audience, Haas almost seem to revel in it. From sponsors who proved to have no money to others who were indirectly linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the portrait of Haas is warts and all. They epitomise the mucky side of being a Formula 1 team. Steiner took on a rockstar persona. Forget drivers like Kevin Magnussen, Romain Grosjean and even Mick Schumacher, son of Michael. Steiner was the star of Haas and the series, not that he would ever have known it. “I didn't watch it and people tell me they like who I am. You see me here and you have watched it. I don't change and I don't put the show on for you here. “People who have known me for 30, 40, years, they say you have never changed and when they see me on TV, they say that I don't put the show on. It's just me.” On the long list of problems for Steiner at Haas, money was at the top in capitals and underlined. Gene Haas was not short of a few quid but in the world of F1, an expected net worth of $250 million is not going to get you very far. Earlier this year, Mercedes team principal, CEO and part owner Wolff crossed the billionaire mark. Aston Martin’s Lawrence Stroll is valued at $3.8 billion. It was not so much that Haas had brought a knife to a gunfight but rather a water pistol. Or a lemon if you’re a fan of the Wombats. And besides, Gene was not willing to throw all his money into F1. There was his company to keep afloat as well as a NASCAR team. F1 has no relegation and although finishing higher in the Constructors’ standings nets you more prize money, even finishing 10th lands you a healthy sum. The first F1-enforced budget cap came in at $175m and while that meant curbing spending for others, for Steiner and Haas it was an effort just to reach that.
With Gene not willing to put his hand further into his pocket, Steiner became an F1 team principal/chief salesman. In Red Bull and Mercedes and Ferrari, there are whole departments dedicated to securing the most lucrative sponsor deal. At Haas, it was Steiner.
This ordeal was broadcast in 4k on Drive to Survive. During the COVID pandemic, Haas were desperate for funding. While Lando Norris was posing with Richard Mille watches and Max Verstappen sporting the newest TAG Heuer, Steiner was down on one knee, next to a wooden boat made by new sponsor Home Deluxe.
Things did not always go smoothly either. In 2019, they secured Rich Energy as a title sponsor but rather than a welcome injunction of funds, it was the opening of a can of worms that ended in the courtroom. The so-called Red Bull rival was as mysterious as their owner William Storey was loud-mouthed. He had a great big beard, akin to Forrest Gump after his marathon run, and never seemed too far away from the big red nuclear button on his desk.
The deal, which was supposed to be for multiple seasons, collapsed in its first campaign. Rich Energy’s new-found publicity put them on the radar of Whyte Bikes who successfully sued for copyright infringement due to the energy drink’s logo. The court case had a worse consequence for Storey though as it meant opening up his books for the judge to decide fair compensation. In doing that, shareholders realised that Storey had not always been telling the truth about how healthy the company's finances were.
An internal struggle ensued and, on the Wednesday before Silverstone, Rich Energy tweeted that they had terminated the contract with Haas due to “poor performance”, which was news to Steiner and co. It was the latest sign of the internal battle that ended with Storey being removed the day after the British Grand Prix. In September, Haas confirmed the deal was dead.
Having had their fingers burned, there was an expectation that Haas may be a little more careful with sponsorship opportunities in the future but beggars can’t be choosers. Following the COVID pandemic – an incident which Steiner concedes the team would not have survived had it not been for the UK’s furlough scheme – Haas were again in need of cash and so welcomed in Urakali, a Russian fertiliser producer, who also demanded a seat for the son of one of their shareholders as part of the deal. In came Nikita Mazepin, quite possibly the worst F1 driver in a generation, into a Haas painted with the colours of the Russian flag. 21 races saw him fail to score a point and fail to finish in five of them. He was beaten by teammate Mick Schumacher in 15 of those 21 races despite the German also being a rookie.
Mazepin’s arrival into F1 was also a nightmare from a PR perspective. Soon after his Haas deal was announced, a video emerged of him groping a woman in his car against her wishes. To make matters worse, Mazepin was the one stupid enough to film it. Haas were extinguishing fires before Mazepin even got near the seat.
They finished 2021 last in the Constructors’ standings having failed to score a single point and the next season started with just as many headaches for Steiner. On 24 February 2022, the day before the first testing event of the season, Russia invaded Ukraine. Mazepin and his father Dmitry were added to the EU list of sanctions against Russian nationals with the latter known to be a close associate of Vladimir Putin. Even if Haas had not acted, Mazepin would not even be allowed to race in half the countries on the F1 calendar.
Steiner and Gene pulled the plug on March 5, kicking Mazepin out of the car and wiping any resemblance of Urakali – as well as the Russian flag – off the 2022 car. That was not to be the end of it either. Mazepin has pursued legal action for what he claims are unpaid wages while Haas were barred from leaving the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix due to an outstanding debt owed to Urakali.
All the while, Steiner was also dealing with issues on the other side of the garage. Mick Schumacher failed to match expectations and Steiner’s handling of the affair put him in the crosshairs of Ralf Schumacher, Mick’s uncle. Even now, it is clear Michael’s brother cannot stand Steiner and having spent years sniping from the sidelines, Schumacher refused to work with Steiner when both were contracted to German TV channel RTL. Take any one of these incidents and it can be seen as the overall story of Haas. A team that is starting a couple steps behind the competition and is having hurdles put up before they have even reached the start line. But in amongst the bad, Haas have enjoyed some moments in the sun. In 2018, they finished fifth in the Constructors’ standings, ahead of McLaren, with a more than respectable tally of 93 points. They have scored points in all but one of their seasons in the sport and at the 2022 Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Kevin Magnussen recorded Haas’ first, and to date, only pole position. Perhaps that then is why the story of Haas has been so appealing to Netflix’s audience. On a platform that has hundreds of hours of dramas and works of fiction showing the little guy winning, here is a real-life example of the underdog having its day.
Steiner’s credit for this will vary depending who you ask. There are those who support him, including former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto with the two opening one season of Drive to Survive driving in a tiny Fiat through the Italian countryside, and he has his critics, none more so than Schumacher. But even the likes of the German must concede that without Steiner, this team would not exist. But despite the obstacles thrown at them, still Haas remains, holder of one of only 10 golden tickets. The team have a more secure title sponsor in the form of American financial company MoneyGram. They have just announced Toyota as a new technical partner, a massive get for a team that has often had to fight for scraps.
Whatever success Haas may go on to achieve, they will do without Steiner. In the off-season break of 2023, he was called by Gene during the Christmas period, and it was not holiday wishes the team owner was calling to give. Steiner was informed his contract was not going to be renewed and that was that. A team that Steiner had helped build up from the ground was to go on without him.
The split was not harmonious. At the time of writing, one legal case between Steiner and Haas has been settled in the former’s favour, another is ongoing. Steiner was not given time to say his goodbyes to a workforce he had built. The opening page of his book is dedicated to all the staff of Haas but with an asterisk saying: “except you Gene!”
“I had good years but if you're in a sport, there's always a challenge,” he said. “You cannot always pretend that everything goes just uphill. You need to have ups and downs. I think it was very good for me. It was good fun. It was good for the sport. I made a lot of new friends.
“I had good years but if you're in a sport, there's always a challenge,” he said. “You cannot always pretend that everything goes just uphill. You need to have ups and downs. I think it was very good for me. It was good fun. It was good for the sport. I made a lot of new friends.
“I was pretty happy that it was the end though because I wasn't happy for a few years, it wasn't going the direction I wanted to go. It's Gene’s company, he does with his company what he wants to do and I do with my one what I want to do so I fully respect that one.
“But all good things come to an end. I didn't lose sleep that night. I was fine. I was free, I was done. This is good. I move on. I have always got something to do.”
In his place came Ayao Komatsu, a long-time servant of Haas having been trackside engineering director since 2016. With Komatsu’s arrival, Haas were thought to be going for a more understated approach, a clear rejection of the Steiner way of doing things. Steiner had steadied the ship through rocky waters, it was time for another man to take the helm. In Komatsu, Gene has someone he believes in but someone who he would not butt heads with as much as he did with Steiner. As for Steiner, it is a measure of the man that a planned appearance at an automotive event just a few days after his Haas departure was announced still went ahead with the Italian-American only too happy to joke with the crowd before signing copies of his book.
It would not be the first media appearance Steiner would take part in. Earlier this year I attended the launch of his new whisky partnership. In March, he was announced as “a key partner and ambassador” of the Miami Grand Prix. On the day we spoke, he had just come from doing four podcasts in what was a typical day in his whirlwind book tour. Ask him how he plans to spend his evening in London and he will tell you he is off to a book launch in Guildford. Steiner is arguably in the news more now than he ever was as Haas boss. And F1 fans have not had to wait long to see Steiner back on their TVs. He is working as a commentator for German channel RTL, appearing at 12 races in the 2024 season, an experience he has enjoyed having now crossed to the other side of the fence.
“I'm learning a lot,” he said of his punditry. “I understand more about the world on the other side now which is always good and I can still be around people I worked with for 10 years in the paddock.
“I think I can contribute something to Formula 1 with my experience so it's all good. I could easily stop doing it, but I like to be around because, you know, we shared so much time together with some people.
“Sometimes it’s tough but I realised when you need to ask tough questions, I think a lot is how you ask them. As long as you don't make a statement. I ask somebody and give them a fair chance to tell me. Give me your story, because maybe I'm wrong and that is what I always expected from the press when they asked me.
“There's some journalists who I couldn't stand, who told me what they thought, and I just had to say yes or no. Some of your colleagues are pretty idiotic and I didn't like that, so I try not to be that guy.”
As for Haas, speaking before the Toyota deal was announced, Steiner said they will face a problem that every team not called Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren or Red Bull has discovered – the glass ceiling of Formula 1.
“That is why I was not happy there anymore,” the 59-year-old said. “The ceiling is you're happy to make a point.
“You can have a miracle like the pole position from Kevin Magnussen in Brazil, but you cannot do it on your own. Like Maradona said, God's hand needs to be there so I think that's a ceiling.
“They're doing pretty well and I want to give credit to Simone Resta (Haas’ technical director who left at the same time as Steiner). This was all done last year, the development of this car and obviously they are reaping the rewards now.
“But some of the teams just cannot go over that one because of the big teams, the infrastructure, the people.”
But Haas’ success is no longer Steiner’s concern. He is enjoying life on the outside, able to spend more time at his home in North Carolina while also in the F1 paddock enough to feel like he has not gone cold turkey. But a question that Netflix will want answered more than most is does Steiner see a way back onto the pit wall? Is his time in the F1 inferno done?
“I wouldn't say it's done,” he said. “but it's not something I actively pursue, you know, to get the next job. If there is something out there, a project which needs to be done, I'm fine, but I'm fine also not to sit on the pit wall, to sit in a motorhome. I'm pretty fine with that.
“But it needs to be something where I can influence what is happening and that there is a goal with whoever wants to do it together. You have a goal together.” In the same year that Daniel Ricciardo has departed,
Netflix will be hoping their star finds his next goal sooner rather than later.
