Horner questions Steiner's F1 record as Drive to Survive fame overshadows results

Christian Horner has taken a pointed swipe at Guenther Steiner, arguing the former Haas team principal built a celebrity profile through Netflix’s Drive to Survive that far outstrips his actual results in Formula 1 — a career that never yielded a single podium finish.

Speaking to Autosport, the 14-time F1 title-winning Red Bull boss said: “Guenther Steiner has made a career off the back of it… I mean, I don’t think he ever achieved a podium in Formula 1! But good for him. He is a character, quite a scary character when he worked for us, but yeah, it’s brought a whole new fan base into the sport, which has been fantastic.”

Steiner led Haas from the team’s debut in 2014 until his dismissal at the end of 2023. His tenure produced two last-place finishes in the Constructors’ Championship, with a best result of fifth place in 2018. The standout moment of his time at the wheel came in November 2022, when Kevin Magnussen claimed a shock pole position at a rain-soaked Brazilian Grand Prix — a result that remained the team’s most celebrated achievement under his watch.

His outsized fame, however, was largely a product of Drive to Survive, the Netflix docuseries that brought F1 to a global mainstream audience. Steiner’s blunt personality and colourful language made him one of the show’s breakout stars, a profile he subsequently leveraged into a book titled Surviving to Drive.

Horner acknowledged the series’ broader value to the sport, even while gently deflating Steiner’s credentials. “These guys are making a TV show, so they take hours and hours and hours of footage and it’s all about how you edit something,” he said. “You can either make somebody look like the villain or the hero or vice versa. That show has been incredibly successful because it suddenly lifted the lid on some of the rivalries, the personalities, the driver’s personalities, some of the characters.”

The two men share a history that predates Steiner’s time at Haas. After early roles in the World Rally Championship and as managing director of Jaguar F1 between 2001 and 2002, Steiner joined Red Bull — who had taken over Jaguar’s entry — as technical operations director for the team’s debut season in 2005. His stay lasted just one year, with Horner recalling that the arrival of designer Adrian Newey effectively ended Steiner’s role at the Milton Keynes outfit.

“When I arrived at Red Bull, they said we’ve employed this guy that Niki Lauda had recommended, he used to be at Jaguar, his name’s Guenther Steiner,” Horner said. “I’d never heard of him and when I looked him up on the internet he looked fairly scary, that was my first impression.”

Steiner subsequently moved to Red Bull’s NASCAR division as technical director, a post he held until 2008 before eventually finding his way back to F1 with Haas. Now 61, he remains a prominent figure in the sport’s media landscape despite no longer holding a team principal role.