It was on this day, 18 years ago, that Guenther Steiner was announced as Technical Director for Red Bull Racing. The current Team Principal of the Haas F1 team has become a cult figure in recent years, growing in prominence through the thrilling Drive to Survive series and his expletive-laden outbursts and one-liners. However, Steiner's motorsport story goes back long before the Netflix cameras showed up and, if things had turned out differently, he might've been seen in recent years in Red Bull apparel. After a long career in rallying engineering and management, Steiner joined the Ford-backed Jaguar Racing effort as Team Principal for 2001, but left this role by 2003 after the team failed to make the desired leaps forward. Steiner found himself back at the Milton Keynes team as Technical Director for 2005, albeit with the Ford entry being purchased by Red Bull, who were about to embark on their first season in Formula 1.
However, with Red Bull soon successfully poaching F1 tech guru Adrian Newey, Steiner was offered a role at the head of Red Bull's NASCAR efforts, and moved to the USA to fill that role until 2008. During his time in the States, Steiner founded the company FibreWorks Composites before commencing discussions with Gene Haas about launching a Formula 1 team. Haas' F1 ambitions became a reality in 2016, and Steiner has been the Team Principal of the popular American team ever since. Such is the rise in his popularity, the 57-year-old has recently announced that he will be releasing a book called Surviving the Drive , which details Haas' 2022 season.
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