Steiner’s initial literary venture, “Surviving to Drive,” came into being after an invitation from James Hogg, a renowned ghostwriter.
Released initially in the UK by Penguin Random House, this book provided an insider’s view of the Haas team’s journey through the 2022 season, interspersed with highlights from Steiner’s earlier career phases.
READ MORE: Netflix Drive to Survive Season 6 Confirmed for February
This book achieved notable success, selling over 150,000 copies and being translated into 12 languages, with plans for a UK paperback edition set for release in March.
James Hogg, who collaborated with Steiner on this project, has a history of working with notable names such as Damon Hill, Johnny Herbert, and Jason Plato.
Steiner and Hogg had commenced their second joint project when Steiner recently made headlines due to his departure from the Haas team by owner Gene Haas, potentially adding a new dimension to their upcoming work.
“We are working on the second book at the moment,” Steiner told Motorsport.com. “That was planned already before. Now, obviously, the story maybe changes a little bit!”
Steiner’s positive experience with the initial project inspired him to engage in book signing events at stores, interacting directly with fans.
“It was a completely new experience,” he said. “And I learned a lot about how some industries work, how things are done because I was never exposed to this before.
“And I actually enjoyed working with the writer, he is a cool dude, we had good fun. And he had good fun as well. He said hanging out with me was always good fun because it was never the pressure of ‘we need to do this’. It all came very organically.”
Steiner refutes claims that his involvement in the book and his appearances on the popular Netflix series Drive to Survive diverted his attention from his responsibilities at Haas.
“I think people are overrating that, how much distraction that is,” he said. “Because it isn’t actually a lot of distraction from the daily job.
“Obviously on the race weekends, you need to work more. But for example, I didn’t have 20 [sponsor] appearances a weekend, I had maybe three maximum.
“It’s not like that is distracting, even writing the book. Obviously, a ghostwriter does it for you.
“Now I’ve got more time, but even now, we do two sessions a week of half an hour. We do one on Tuesday and one on Friday. That’s all I do, he does the rest.
“You speak with him, but it’s not like I spent days speaking with him. I know that some people have spent days speaking with these people, but I didn’t.
“I don’t think that is a big factor. I think that there were more benefits for the team than anything else about this because they got a lot of sponsors.”
Source: Motorsport.com
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