In leading the Haas F1 Team, Guenther Steiner is one of Formula 1’s most popular and high profile Team Principals. With over 30 years of experience in international motor sport he has led America’s only Formula 1 team since launching its inaugural World Championship campaign on behalf of team owner Gene Haas back in 2016. Born in Merano, Italy, Steiner began his professional motor sport career in rallying, initially achieving success with Mazda before joining the independent Top Run team and later the Jolly Club organisation, fielding cars including the famous Lancia Delta Integrale and Ford Escort RS Cosworth.
Between 1994 and 1996 the team won consecutive Italian Rally Championship titles with Steiner in the role of Technical Manager. A move to the Prodrive organisation in Banbury, UK, saw Steiner become team manager for its Allstar Rally Team, winning the European Championship in just its first season. This led to him being invited to join Ford’s rally team, M-Sport, where he became Director of Engineering, working with World Champions Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz.
In 2002 Ford asked Guenther Steiner to move across to its Formula 1 project, Jaguar Racing. As Managing Director he took on the task of restructuring the team and in his single season with the team it scored a podium finish in Italy with driver Eddie Irvine. After a short period working with Opel, Steiner soon returned to Formula 1 with Red Bull Racing, the Austrian energy drinks company later asking him to establish its NASCAR racing programme in the United States of America.
This led Steiner to North Carolina, the beginning of a new chapter in his career which saw him not only establish Team Red Bull but also FibreWorks Composites, a high-tech carbon-composites design and manufacturing company. When entrepreneur Gene Haas began exploring the logistics of creating a Formula One team, he approached Steiner to lead the effort. His past experience of building successful race and rally teams from scratch made him the ideal person for the task.
The Haas F1 Team made its debut in 2016, finishing its inaugural season eighth in the constructor standings with a total of 29 points, the most of any new team in this millennium. Since then Haas has become firmly established as one of F1’s leading independent teams and in 2018 finished fifth in the World Championship. In 2022 Steiner’s team scored its first ever Formula 1 pole position in the hands of Danish driver Kevin Magnussen.
Meanwhile, the Haas F1 team boss has become both a media and fan favourite, thanks in part to his straight-talking style and the keen sense of humour which became evident through the hugely popular Netflix series Drive To Survive. A fluent in English, German and Italian speaker, Guenther Steiner is one of the most recognised and sought- after Team Principals in Formula 1 today.
