It’s clear from the outset who this book is aimed at: those fans of F1 who came to the sport via the smash-hit Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive. The clue is in the name, but also in the author.

Guenther Steiner has been the unlikely breakout star of the show and this book aims to cement his celebrity via a diary-style romp through the 2022 season.

To a large extent it succeeds. Steiner is an engaging and at times hilarious guide through his high-pressure world and his woe-is-me honesty about running an at times beleaguered Haas F1 team rings true. His frustration with Mick Schumacher’s under-performance is clear, McLaren’s Andreas Seidl gets both barrels for questioning Haas’s relationship with Ferrari while many a post-race entry opens with the with words, “I’m too angry/upset/frustrated to write anything.”

Even so, despite the author’s much stressed straight-talking shtick, you sense he isn’t as reckless as he puts across. He pulls his punches when it comes to the diabolical finale of the 2021 season, claiming that he doesn’t know all the facts and skirts the issue surrounding racing in Saudi after the missile attack in 2022 saying lamely that he was satisfied with the reassurances he received from the authorities.

But Steiner was on the right side of history and clearly grasped the issues surrounding his Russian driver Nikita Mazepin and his team’s title sponsor Uralkali immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Describing the decision to drop the main sponsor he says: “There was no debate. It had to happen for the good of Haas and the good of the sport.” Later he adds wryly: “Only Haas could have a Russian driver and a Russian sponsor at the start of a Russian war.”

He can be genuinely funny, musing that in place of dud GPs there should be a fight-off between team principals. Christian Horner could be “pretty tough”; “Otmar at Alpine looks like he could be pretty useful…. Poor old Fred [Vasseur] though. He couldn’t knock the skin off a foking potato” (ghostwriter James Hogg employs the phonetic spelling of Steiner’s favourite word throughout). Kevin Magnussen is “A funny guy, for a Dane.”

Fans of the series will love this canter through an eventful season which brings them closer to the characters they see on TV. Even those who have never watched the show (like Steiner himself, or so he claims) will warm to the engaging boss of Haas. JD

Surviving to Drive  A Year Inside Formula 1  Guenther Steiner Bantam Press, £20