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GUENTHER STEINER

Former Team principal of Haas F1 Team in the FIA Formula One World Championship

  • Former Team Principal of Haas F1 Team, Steiner led America's only Formula 1 team from its creation in 2014 through 2023
  • Gained global recognition through Netflix’s Drive to Survive and is now a Formula 1 expert analyst for RTL (Germany), Canal+ (France), and Network 10 (Australia)
  • Started in rallying with Mazda, Lancia, and Ford, later transitioning into Formula 1 with Jaguar Racing and Red Bull Racing
  • Entrepreneur and innovator, he founded FibreWorks Composites, a high-tech car-bon-composites company in North Carolina, and played a key role in launching Red Bull’s NASCAR team
  • Best-selling author and fan favorite, he has published two successful books (Sur-vive to Drive and Unfiltered) and is fluent in English, German, and Italian

Guenther Steiner is one of Formula 1’s most popular and high profile Team Principals and led the Haas F1 team from its inception in 2014 until the end of 2023. He led America’s only Formula 1 team from its launch and came to public prominence as one of the stars of the award winning Netflix series Drive to Survive. He is now an expert analyst on Formula 1 for German broadcaster RTL, French channel Canal+ and Australia’s Network 10.

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 organization, 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 organization 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 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 team in the USA. 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 which he continues to own.

Using his experience of building successful race and rally teams from scratch, Steiner de-veloped a business plan to create an American Formula 1 team, successfully attracting the backing of entrepreneur Gene Haas. The Haas F1 Team made its debut in 2016, finishing its inaugural season eighth in the constructor standings with 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 he has become both a media and fan favorite, thanks to his straight-talking style and the keen sense of humor which became evident through the Drive To Survive series. His 2023 book Survive to Drive became an instant hit and topped The Sunday Times best-seller list while in 2024 his second book, Unfiltered - My Incredible Decade in Formula 1, was well received by fans worldwide. Fluent in English, German and Italian speaker, Stei-ner is one of the most recognized and sought-after figures in Formula 1.

Guenther tailors each presentation to the needs of his audience and is not limited to the topics listed below. Please ask us about any subject that interests you:

  • Sustainability
  • Health & Safety
  • Leadership
  • Teamwork & Collaboration
  • Data-driven performance & Innovation
  • Safety & Risk Management
  • Change & Transformation
  • Unlocking Peak Performance & The Winning
  • Mindset
  • Diversity, Equality and Inclusion

Sustainability

Formula One is often seen as a potentially wasteful, gas-guzzling sport which has a large carbon footprint and thus damaging to the environment. Yet the sport is in the midst of a revolution, one which will see the World Championship, all ten teams, 24 Grands Prix and every facet of its operations achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2030. In 2026 the sport will stop using fossil fuels, working with the energy sector to develop sustainable, synthetic fuels and develop sophisticated hybrid technologies. Factory operations, event operations, technolo-gy, travel and logistics – every area of activity – is being addressed to ensure the sport is fully sustainable, developing solutions which have wider applications to society

Health & Safety 

Formula One motor racing has placed safety at the center of its regulatory, technical and operational focus for over 30 years, but it has been the cultural shift among these high per-forming teams of men and women competing at the forefront of the world championship which has had the greatest impact on the sport’s safety revolution. Given the importance of human factors and behaviors in managing risk, ensuring safety and guaranteeing positive outcomes, F1 has also broadened the scope of its safety programs to include the health, wellbeing and psychological safety of team members, giving everyone a voice. F1 teams recognize that mental health, physical fitness and overall wellness are key to ensuring the best outcomes are achieved and sustained.

Leadership

The requirements of Formula One’s team leaders have changed significantly in recently years as teams have become larger, more complex, and the business model to which the sport operates has been transformed. The leaders in F1 today are responsible for leading up to 1800 full time employees, creating a high-performance organization which is fully aligned behind a strategy aimed at achieving a set of well defined, ambitious goals. Com-petitive team leaders create a culture in which team personnel take responsibility and are happy to be held accountable for their performance. Developing a high degree of psycho-logical safety is key, requiring staff to speak up and speak out, with strong cross functional communications. A relentless focus on continuous improvement is part of the F1 leader’s mindset, and teams take a data-driven approach to measuring performance, highlighting issues and analyzing developments. But whilst F1 is a technocentric sport, the successful leaders recognize that it is the people who make a difference. This is why so much effort is deployed to create an environment within which employees thrive, using their combined talents to problem solve and create highly innovative solutions in order to drive competitive advantage.

Teamwork & Collaboration

Competitive Formula One teams comprise 1800 staff, less than 10% of whom attend the race events, so teamwork requires complete alignment, shared purpose and close collabo-ration across the business. The world championship includes 24 Grands Prix and these represent a series of non-negotiable deadlines which the entire organization has to meet in terms of car development, hardware and software upgrades. The ultimate, public example of high-performance teamwork comes in the form of the mandatory pit stops which have to be performed during a race – the record now stands at 1.8 seconds during which 22 staff carry out 36 tasks under extreme pressure. Alignment behind the team’s strategies and ambitious goals is vital, so too having the agility to flex the strategy in the face of constant changes in technology and the performance of competitors.

Data-driven performance & Innovation

More than any other sport, Formula One has embraced a data-driven business culture, particularly with its near obsession with marginal gains and continuous improvement. F1 teams use data to enable drivers, engineers and HQ staff to determine precisely how the car and driver is behaving, diagnose issues, resolve problems and speed up decision mak-ing. As information flows seamlessly around the globe, linking car, team and factory, tech security is essential and robust systems ensure protection from multiple threats. The use of simulators has transformed driver training, enabling systems to be learned, tested and de-veloped in a virtual environment prior to real-world deployment. And with the advent of ad-ditive manufacturing, machine learning, AI and GenAI across F1, the sport’s use of tech-nology to innovate and transform all aspects of its operations is set to accelerate further.

Safety & Risk Management

Safety is a first order priority in Formula One and the last 30 years have seen a profound change to the way in which the sport manages risk. Between 1950 and 1994, there were over 40 driver fatalities at races; there has been one since. This has been made possible by creating clear priorities as regards safety. Compliance is non-negotiable. Safety is not an area of competitive advantage. Safety systems, processes and technologies are shared so that F1 doesn’t have islands of excellence in oceans of mediocrity. However, the risk averse teams never win in F1 – the teams which embrace and manage risk are more likely to try new things, innovate in ways both small and large, and ultimately drive competitive advantage. It’s the difference between participating and competing. The other factor is ‘fear of failure’. Teams that have a blame culture create such a degree of fear that everyone minimizes their contribution and hides their mistakes, whereas those which thrive on creat-ing a learning environment of continuous improvement have a degree of openness, hones-ty and transparency which promotes creativity and innovation, and taking risks, in a con-trolled way.

Change & Transformation

Every industry is witnessing change and Formula One is no different. One of the challeng-es facing F1 teams is that the sector is ever-changing – so change management and lead-ing teams through periods of transformation is an essential part of the job. Change comes in many forms; technology, compliance, competition, customer demands, environmental and social issues. F1 has had to reinvent its business model, embrace digitalization, adapt to a changing media and social landscape. Above all, F1’s leadership teams have had to communicate, manage and implement transformation strategies, bringing their teams with them and ensuring that they make the most from embracing change.

Unlocking Peak Performance & The Winning Mindset

The science behind enabling peak human performance, both physical and mental, has played a pivotal role in developing the way in which Formula One drivers and team person-nel realize their potential in this enormously demanding sport. High performance coaches focus on aspects including physical training, nutrition, diet, hydration and optimizing sleep patterns. All the teams now recognize that health and well-being is critical when building teams capable to delivering winning outcomes in a high-pressure environment. This holistic approach to physical and mental health and well- being used to be confined to Formula One drivers but, over the last 20 years, teams expanded that to include the pit crews and travelling personnel. Today Formula One teams invest in the wellbeing of all personnel, whether factory based or travelling. Mental health has become a major focus as teams seek to help staff develop the focus, sustained performance and mental toughness to deal with the relentless challenge of this high-performance environment.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion

Often perceived as a male-dominated sport, Formula One has invested heavily in gender diversity, also generating equal opportunities and inclusion for anyone from an under-represented group or background. That journey began over 20 years ago with initiatives including F1 In Schools and Formula Student seeking to motivate children of school age as well as undergraduates from every background to consider a career in Formula One. The Formula 1 Academy , launched in 2023, is developing female talent across the sport, whether as future F1 drivers, engineers or management, The sport’s governing body, the FIA, operates the FIA Girls on Track program, again providing young women and girls from around the world with opportunities across motorsport. Individual Formula 1 team are also running important, game-changing initiatives, including Mercedes F1’s ‘Accelerate ‘25’ pro-gram which aims to ensure that 25% of all new employees are selected from under-represented cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Seven times World Champion Lew-is Hamilton, the first black driver to compete in Formula 1, has worked with Mercedes to creative mentorship and educational programs for girls’ schools in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. Hamilton’s Mission 44 organization has set about driving structural change with motorsport to ensure that anyone of color can develop career opportunities in Formula 1. Meanwhile Race Pride charity has attracted widespread support from Formula 1 and its constituent teams, supporting the LGBTQIA+ community across the industry.

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