“Surviving to Drive” by Guenther Steiner reviewed

Has Drive to Survive raised the profile of any particular person in Formulation 1 greater than Haas staff principal Guenther Steiner?

Certain, Daniel Ricciardo grew to become one other favorite determine of the hit Netflix collection. However when the Field to Field crew first despatched their cameras into the paddock Ricciardo was already a grand prix winner and much better recognized than the chief of a staff which was solely in its third season.

Steiner’s plain-spoken, unfiltered and infrequently profane reactions to his staff’s fluctuating fortunes definitely helped him develop into the unlikeliest break-out star of the collection. However how effectively does that model come throughout in e-book kind?

In Surviving to Drive (you may see what they did there) Steiner retells the story of the 2022 season, including in snippets of his backstory. That is all advised in some approximation of his mannerisms acquainted from a dozen DTS memes – in different phrases, heavy on the expletives, together with over 300 makes use of of ‘fok’. That averages out at a couple of per web page.

That’s not going to be to everybody’s tastes, although for me it was much less of an issue than how compelled the narrative feels. There’s no finish of cheeky chappy what-is-he-like ‘Banter Steiner’, which begins to grate about three pages in, however different passages learn like rehashed press releases.

It’s repetitive, too, and never simply in its self-references. Most of the recaps of 2022 races boil right down to little greater than luck going in opposition to them. Mentions of the ‘ongoing foolish season’ crop up in shut succession.

The restrictions of the model could be tolerable – simply – if Surviving to Drive introduced compelling new insights into the goings-on at Haas final yr. But it surely provides little to what was reported over the course of 2022 and too usually lapses into bland explanations of points of the season unrelated to the staff.

Its most fulfilling passages are the handful of anecdotes in regards to the early phases of his profession. Maybe as a result of the creator assumes the reader is much less accustomed to the tales – and despite his apologies for together with them – these are essentially the most vibrant and entertaining sections of the e-book.

Steiner additionally lives as much as his fame of being unwilling to drag punches. Andreas Seidl will get some largely good-humoured stick, Ralf Schumacher the identical however with out the humour (and together with his identify misspelled).

Surviving to Drive additionally stands out as being a uncommon instance of an F1 staff principal placing pen to paper in any respect, by no means thoughts whereas nonetheless an energetic competitor. That makes it an attention-grabbing case however given its different shortcomings isn’t sufficient to earn it a advice.

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