Book Review: Unfiltered by Guenther Steiner

During this F1 season break, there are a number of books on my reading list that I’ve been wanting to tick off. One of these is Guenther Steiner’s second book “Unfiltered”. Most F1 fans will know Guenther as the former team principal of Haas F1 team and cult fan favourite from Drive to Survive. “Unfiltered” follows his first book “Driving to Survive” (which I’ve not read yet but am told covers Haas F1’s 2022 season in parallel with Netflix’s Drive to Survive series).

Over 300 pages long, this new book packs in a lot of history – it chronicles Guenther’s early involvement in F1 via Jaguar and the Red Bull buyout, partnering with Ferrari, applying for new F1 team licence with Gene Haas, successfully being awarded entry to the F1 grid, maiden season, success in the midfield with Kevin and Romain, the dramas  with title sponsors  Rich Energy and Urakali, KMag’s return stint and Brazilian pole, mediocre 2023 season and Gene Haas’s non-renewal phone call. Each chapter is short and moves in a fast conversational tone – the narrative doesn’t slow or get bogged down in technical or engineering details (in fact, there’s very little delving into the team’s engineering issues).

Inserted between chapters are few off-topic non-Haas  insights from Guenther (which he calls Pitstops in the book) including confessing his actual professional driving skills, dealings and disagreements with the FIA.

Although I haven’t read Guenther’s first book yet, I’m quietly confident that  Unfiltered might be a better read, mainly due to the fact that it covers Guenther’s career and the complete history of Haas F1 from inception in 2014 through to December 2023.

As for photos, this paperback has the obligatory 8 pages centre spread of colour photo thumbnails from Guenther’s original slide deck to the FIA in 2014 to Suzuka 2023.

If you enjoy Guenther in Netflix’s DTS or his podcast interviews, then the narrative in Unfiltered is very much in the same conversational style. Lots of F bombs, laughs and behind the scenes stories of stresses, disappointing lows and emotional highs. 

Guenther fans from DTS might be expecting lots of harsh words and opinions in this book (at least that’s what I was expecting) but he’s quite gentle on a lot of topics, even Nikita Mazepin! New Haas F1 team principal, Ayao Komatsu gets a few passing mentions as the race engineer. Given the book was written after his exit from Haas F1 and the freedom to write about his time at Haas, Guenther’s various stories on his interactions and thoughts on Gene Haas make for interesting reading. 

As Gunther would say, this book is definitely a ‘foking good read’.

Wow Factor/Money shot:  “The Beans” Chapter in 2018 season.

Suitable for: Current era & Drive to Survive F1 fans

Find this book:  Amazon.com