Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner is set to release a second Formula 1 book following the huge success of his 2023 book Surviving to Drive.
The first book which detailed the unfiltered story behind Haas’ 2022 campaign as well as Steiner’s career, sold over 150,000 copies as he recounted experiences from his days in the Formula 1 paddock with his popularity having grown as one of the main characters in the Netflix series Drive to Survive.
As a result of how popular Steiner has become especially in the US, American TV network CBS is developing a workplace sitcom in which Steiner will serve as a non-writing producer.
His first book was an immediate hit when it was launched last year, thanks to an overwhelming reception from fans due to his straightforward, unpretentious attitude. There will be a paperback edition of the book in the UK in March while it will soon be available in twelve languages.
Recently, Steiner’s tenure at Haas came to an end when his contract as team principal was not renewed and Ayao Komatsu was picked as his replacement for the upcoming season.
As a result, Steiner will have far more free time than he anticipated this year. Luckily, he’s already working on a new project, so he can dedicate part of the spare time to it.
Steiner has now disclosed that a follow-up book is currently in the works, with Steiner collaborating with a ghostwriter to author a new book. He has also acknowledged that the book’s narrative has somewhat changed.
“We are working on the second book at the moment,” Steiner confirmed to motorsport.com. “That was planned already before. Now, obviously, the story maybe changes a little bit!”
The former Haas team principal personally interacted with fans as he signed copies of his first book. Despite the fact that he is accustomed to seeing fans at races, it was interesting and delightful to meet those who had read about him.
“It was a completely new experience,” he added. “I learned a lot about how some industries work, how things are done because I was never exposed to this before.
“I actually enjoyed working with the writer, he is a cool dude, we had good fun and he had good fun as well.
“He said hanging out with me was always good fun because it was never the pressure of ‘we need to do this’. It all came very organically.”
Steiner maintains that he was not distracted from his former role by all the attention, despite allegations to the contrary resulting from his popularity and the things that came from it, including his first book.
“I think people are overrating that, how much distraction that is, because it isn’t actually a lot of distraction from the daily job,” he added. “Obviously on the race weekends, you need to work more. But for example, I didn’t have 20 [sponsor] appearances a weekend, I had maybe three maximum. It’s not like that is distracting.
“Even writing the book. Obviously, a ghostwriter does it for you. Now I’ve got more time, but even now, we do two sessions a week of half an hour.
“We do one on Tuesday and one on Friday. That’s all I do, he does the rest.
“You speak with him, but it’s not like I spent days speaking with him. I know that some people have spent days speaking with these people, but I didn’t.
“I don’t think that is a big factor. I think that there were more benefits for the team than anything else about this because they got a lot of sponsors.”
