Christian Horner takes a cheeky dig at ‘former colleague’ Guenther Steiner as former Red Bull man talks about the impact of Drive to Survive
Christian Horner took a cheeky dig at Guenther Steiner as he talked about how Drive to Survive had the ability to turn anyone into a hero or a villain. The Netflix docuseries has played a major role in helping F1 reach the masses.
Showing behind-the-scenes stuff and trying to put together a more digestible narrative saw the series, more often than not, paint Christian Horner as the pantomime villain. It was during this time as well that Guenther Steiner and his character became popular among the fans.
From the very first season, Steiner was a fan favorite for the manner in which he talked and conducted himself. Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal at the time, fell on the other side of the spectrum, as the Brit was often portrayed as a villain.
More often than not, it did appear that Horner would even play into the character a bit and add to the drama. Talking about how he was portrayed during an interview with Autosport, Christian Horner opened up about how a lot of it was down to how the editing was done.
The Brit talked about how Steiner would become such a big name through the series, even though he hadn’t achieved even a single podium in his F1 career. He said,
“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. 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 drivers’ personalities, some of the characters.”
He added,
“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.”
Christian Horner on working with Guenther Steiner at Red Bull
Working as Haas team principal was Steiner’s second stint in F1, as he had worked with Red Bull as a technical director at the beginning of the team’s journey in the sport. Eventually, Adrian Newey would be hired by Christian Horner, and that would mean curtains for Steiner’s stint in the sport.
Talking about how the former Haas team principal fared, Christian Horner had revealed that Steiner’s RB2 was rejected at first glance by Adrian Newey, as he shifted the focus to the next project. Horner revealed,
“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. I’d never heard of him and when I looked him up on the internet he looked fairly scary, that was my first impression, and then Guenther turned up.”
He added,
“He was then responsible for the RB2, the Ferrari-powered car that overheated in about three degrees at Silverstone on a shakedown. Adrian Newey turned up shortly afterwards and said ‘well, we’ll forget about that car’. Then Guenther went off within the Red Bull world to work on the NASCAR project that was just getting going and that was his sort of transition into the American world.”
Guenther Steiner has since moved on to become a team owner in MotoGP. Horner, on his part, is charting his way back to the grid as a team owner in F1.
