{"id":17932,"date":"2023-04-20T17:04:07","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T17:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/motor-racing-haas-f1-boss\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T17:04:41","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T17:04:41","slug":"motor-racing-haas-f1-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/motor-racing-haas-f1-boss\/","title":{"rendered":"Motor racing-Haas F1 boss Steiner plays it by the book"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alan Baldwin<\/p>\n

LONDON (Reuters) – Haas boss Guenther Steiner has famously not watched the Netflix ‘Drive to Survive’ docu-series that made him a cult hero for a new wave of Formula One fans, but he has read every word of ‘Surviving to Drive’.<\/p>\n

The ghost-written book, published in Britain on Thursday and with a foreword by Formula One chief executive Stefano Domenicali, records Steiner’s 2022 season in typically unfiltered fashion.<\/p>\n

One particular profanity 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.<\/p>\n

“I did the audio book so I have proof that I read it,” the 58-year-old told Reuters, while admitting his focus had been more on keeping the sound engineer happy than the actual contents.<\/p>\n

‘Drive to Survive’, now filming its sixth season and credited with turbo-charging the sport’s popularity, transformed Steiner from relative paddock obscurity to show-stealing phenomenon. <\/p>\n

T-shirts adorned with his face and familiar catchphrases have sold briskly, with the boss often ambushed by fans seeking selfies — to the occasional embarrassment of his teenage daughter. <\/p>\n

A parody Twitter account @BanterSteiner has 184,000 followers.<\/p>\n

HAPPY STEINER<\/p>\n

“It still puts a smile on my face because it wasn\u2019t by design. I didn\u2019t try to do this. It just happened. If they feel happy, I\u2019m happy for them,” said Steiner.<\/p>\n

“If they like it, 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.”<\/p>\n

Steiner said the focus on smaller teams like U.S.-owned Haas, who finished eighth in 2022 and now have Dallas-based MoneyGram as title sponsor, was also of commercial benefit.<\/p>\n

“A lot of sponsors say I actually do not want to be associated with the winner because then I\u2019m always second,” he observed.<\/p>\n

“Because I\u2019m this character now (maybe) that helped to make the decision.”<\/p>\n

The Italian first came into the Formula One 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

RARE EXAMPLE<\/p>\n

The book is a rare example of an active F1 boss putting his thoughts into print, however forthright and uncomplimentary.<\/p>\n

Ralf Schumacher, brother of seven times world champion Michael and uncle of Haas’s dropped former driver Mick, is unlikely to enjoy it.<\/p>\n

The pages reveal the growing frustration with Mick’s crashes, costed at more than $2 million, and irritation at Ralf’s comments on German television.<\/p>\n

“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,” said Steiner.<\/p>\n

“There is things in which maybe some people don\u2019t like but so is life.<\/p>\n

“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\u2019m doing,” he explained. <\/p>\n

“They should see that it\u2019s not all glory in a day of a team principal.”<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ken Ferris)<\/p>\n

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By Alan Baldwin LONDON (Reuters) – Haas boss Guenther Steiner has famously not watched the Netflix ‘Drive to Survive’ docu-series that made him a cult hero for a new wave of Formula One fans, but he has read every word of ‘Surviving to Drive’. The ghost-written book, published in Britain on Thursday and with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":17933,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-17932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3J0OO-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17932"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17934,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17932\/revisions\/17934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}