Guenther Steiner provides some insight into the real relationship between Formula 1 rival team bosses Christian Horner and Toto Wolff in his new tell-all book.
In Surviving to Drive, out later this week, the Haas chief tells of how his job works on a day-to-day level. Written in the style of a diary, he writes about events that are happening at the time and offers his own views on those stories.
In an entry dated Friday, April 22, 2022, Steiner writes about a dinner that he and the other team bosses were invited to in Imola by F1 chief Stefano Domenicali. "I bet he's careful about the seating plan," the Haas chief quips. "He's not daft. Christian will be at the opposite end to Toto."
After all, Horner and Wolff are more than just rival team principals. Amid the fierce 2021 title fight between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, things also got personal on the pit wall with bosses of both Red Bull and Mercedes more than happy to take public swipes at one another.
Most recently, after a period of quiet on that front, Wolff reignited the feud. In a January interview, he asserted his Red Bull rival is "obsessed" with him and declared he was living in Horner's head "rent-free".
And the latest series of Formula 1: Drive to Survive on Netflix shows a scene in which the two bosses bellow at one another in a heated argument during a team principals' meeting. Writing on that same day last April, Steiner gave his thoughts on the relationship between them.
"A lot of people ask me if the whole Christian versus Toto think that you see on Drive to Survive is completely for real. 'Do they really hate each other?' Blah blah blah... If those guys aren't cuddling all the time, why should I care?
"I said earlier that the thing that stops us from killing each other is that, despite us working for different teams, we are all working for, and all care about, Formula 1. Toto and Christian are a case in point. Sometimes in the moment I think they probably do want to kill each other, the same as I would sometimes like to kill the little s*** who questions our relationship with Ferrari.
"At the end of the day, though, we are all in this together and as much as I disagree with what this guy thinks, just like Christian will disagree with Toto sometimes and vice versa, we have to remember that ultimately we all sit under the same tree. If we didn't remember that, we'd be kicking the s*** out of each other all the time."
