The Sunday Times April 10, 2022 13Formula One Australian Grand Prix
REBECCA
CLANCYMotor Racing Correspondent
MelbourneG
uenther Steiner claims that
he has never watched an
episode of Drive to Survive,
the Netflix series that has
made the Haas team princi-
pal a household name. The
57-year-old prefers it this
way, he says, as it means
that he does not feel compelled to
modify his behaviour just because
there is a camera pointing at him.
His wife of 24 years, Gertraud, does
watch it, but their 13-year-old daugh-
ter is not allowed to, saving her from
her father’s bad language. Steiner’s
expletive-laden commentary on the
trials and tribulations of running one
of the lower-ranking teams — all deliv-
ered in an accent somewhere
between German, Italian and Ameri-
can — has made him a favourite even
among people who wouldn’t have
heard of Haas before Drive to Survive.
Here in Melbourne he is back at the
scene of one of his more memorable
moments. In 2019, his drivers were in
fourth and fifth place before pitstop
errors cost them badly. “We could
have looked like rock stars,” he says
on the phone to the team owner Gene
Haas. “But now we look like a f***ing
bunch of wankers. A bunch of f***ing
clowns.”
It’s outbursts such as this that have
turned Steiner into a cult hero. On
Wednesday night he walked around
Melbourne before this weekend’s Aus-
tralian Grand Prix and was stopped
constantly by fans wanting selfies and
autographs. “I won’t be doing that
again,” Steiner says, laughing.
“I’ve never watched any of it. If I
see it then you try to change, you try
to be somebody that maybe you’re
not. I’ve no interest in that. I’m just
doing my job. I don’t want to spend
any additional time just to state some-
thing, you know, for TV because it
doesn’t do anything for me. I don’t
want to be an actor. If I want to be that
I need to take another career path. I’m
just myself, if they make something
out of it, fine with me.
“By watching it you put yourself in
a position that you can critique your-
self. That is what I do and then you
think I need to do this differently, I
don’t like that. I don’t need that.”
The straight-talking Italian-Ameri-
can is exactly the same in person as he
is on screen and says he has been sur-
prised by his new-found fame.
Some four million people watched
the fourth series of Drive to Survive on
the weekend it first came out and it is
regularly in the top ten most-watched
films and TV shows on Netflix.
There has been criticism of the
series by the drivers for hyping up
rivalries or faking some of the drama.
Max Verstappen, the world cham-
pion, has declined to take part, while
Stefano Domenicali, F1’s chief execu-
tive, held a meeting with the produc-
ers in recent weeks to reiterate that
the documentary must portray the
sport in an accurate light.
So is Steiner concerned about how
he is portrayed if he does not watch it?
“Sometimes people don’t under-
stand my jokes because I’m sarcastic,”
he says. “Why should I get upset? It’s
me. If they put it together and it’s a lit-
tle bit more dramatic, I don’t care.ustralian Grand Priiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiixxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Meet Guenther Steiner, the
expletive-heavy boss of Haas and
breakout star of Drive to Survive
and there will be plenty of good mate-
rial from what has already been a dra-
matic season for the team. Haas were
sponsored by the Russian chemical
giant Uralkali, a company owned by
Dmitry Mazepin, which in turn
bought his son, Nikita, a drive with the
American-owned team.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, F1
was in Barcelona for pre-season test-
ing. Dmitry didn’t turn up, as he had
had to fly to Moscow to see Vladimir
Putin, the Russian president, and
Steiner was certain that the right thingto do was remove all branding of
Uralkali from the car. UK motorsport
authorities then banned all Russian
licence holders from competing.
Nikita was released a week later,
four days before the EU slapped sanc-
tions on Mazepin junior and senior,
and the 23-year-old driver said he
found out of his sacking by the press
release. Steiner is insistent, however,
that he was told beforehand. “I sent
him an email before, I have wit-
nesses,” he says. “It was 3am in the
States and I was doing everything cor-
rectly. I sent him the letter [by email]
that we had terminated the relation-
ship and then half an hour later we
sent the press release.”
Mazepin’s seat was filled by the
hugely likeable Kevin Magnussen,
who was replaced at Haas by the Rus-
sian last year. Steiner reveals that his
phone lit up with text messages and
phone calls from drivers all wanting
the job, but he only ever wanted Mag-
nussen. It has proved to be a good
decision, with the 29-year-old claim-
ing all of the team’s 12 points from the
first two races.
Haas were bottom of the construc-
tors’ championship last season, pick-
ing up no points at all as they almost
completely ignored their 2021 car in
favour of developing the 2022
machine, with the regulation changes
coming into force this season.
The decision has already paid divi-
dends, as they arrived in Australia
fifth in the standings. Lewis Hamilton
complained over radio at the first race
that he was struggling in his Mercedes
to keep up with Magnussen’s Haas.
While Steiner is realistic that he
does not expect Haas to be winning
races for another couple of years, the
hope is that Netflix are there to
capture it when they do, because
Steiner’s reaction will be gold dust.‘I never watch it... I don’t
want to be an actor, I’m
just trying to be myself’
Lewis Hamilton is not optimistic
about Mercedes making progress
after the seven-times world
champion qualified fifth for the
Australian Grand Prix. In terms of
updates on the car, Hamilton said:
“There’s nothing particularly
exciting coming at the moment. I
wish I could be optimistic.”
His team-mate, George Russell,
starts sixth, but their performance
was flattered by Ferrari’s Carlos
Sainz qualifying in ninth. Sainz’s
team-mate, Charles Leclerc, is on
pole ahead of Red Bull’s Max
Verstappen and Sergio Pérez.DOWNBEAT HAMILTON
QUALIFIES IN FIFTH“It’s tough sometimes. They make
it more dramatic than it is. That’s their
job but I was never told that they do
something to what I did or said out of
context.”
Steiner reveals that all the teams
are shown the final clips of them by
Netflix and can sign off on what goes
in and what gets cut. Steiner leaves
that job up to his PR man.
“You’ve seen what I approved,
imagine what I haven’t approved,” the
PR says. The outtakes reel would be
worth a fortune.Steiner has been in his role since- He was raised in South Tyrol in
northern Italy, close to the German
border (hence the accent) and studied
engineering at university before drop-
ping out to work as a mechanic in the
World Rally Championship in 1986. In
2001, Niki Lauda recruited him to Jag-
uar Racing and he stayed on when
Red Bull bought the team in 2004.
Three years later he moved to the US
to work in motorsport there, where
he met Haas.
It has been a bumpy ride at Haas
DID LEWIS
BOUNCE
BACK?
Go online to read full reports
of this morning’s race.
TV: 6am on Sky Sports F1,
highlights at 3.05pm on C4
THESUNDAYTIMES.CO.UK/SPORT‘I emailed
Mazepin
at 3am. I
have the
witnesses’