Steiner plays down criticism of Schumacher in 'Drive to Survive'

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says his criticism last season of Mick Schumacher that appears in 'Drive to Survive' were heat-of-the-moment reactions cherry picked and exaggerated by the Netflix series' producers.

In his second in F1, Schumacher endured a difficult first half of 2022 with Haas, the German suffering two high-profile crashes and struggling to match the pace of his teammate Kevin Magnussen.

Drive to Survive's fly-on-the-wall cameras captured Steiners' irate reaction to Schumacher's crash in qualifying Jeddah that sidelined him from the race.

Further critical views were expressed by Steiner after Schumacher's second write-off in Monaco and during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in which the German was hopelessly slower than Magnussen.

Steiner said the essence of 'Drive to Survive' was to magnify the narrative to put a dramatic spin on anything even mildly negative.

"I didn’t watch it, but I made the comments so I remember some of the things I say," said the Haas team boss.

"Obviously Drive to Survive shows the worst and the most tricky moments. So obviously that’s what the show needs to do."

• Read also: Verstappen heals rift with Netflix over Drive to Survive

While the Italian played down the exaggerated negative aspect of his comments, he admitted that he wasn't "ashamed" of what had been expressed.

"Whatever was said, was said," he added. "I cannot take that one back and it was decided not to take it out because it you have nothing to hide and it is what it is. I’m not ashamed of it.

"As I said, I can explain it with ‘the heat of the moment’. As a racer you say things I wouldn’t say now, for example. But things like this happen in racing so we shouldn’t go too deep into it to analyse my mental state."

In the past, two-time F1 world champion Max Verstappen refused to take part in 'Drive to Survive', as he felt at odds with how the series portrayed or misrepresented rivalries or moments between drivers.

Steiner, a favourite character among DtS fans, says he isn't concerned with how he is depicted in the series, insisting he "isn't an actor".

"I’ve got one team member who watches this and I let somebody else decide," he said.

"It’s always difficult for me to have an opinion about myself, it’s very difficult. Put yourself in my shoes, you know what I mean, the best is they don’t show anything. But is that good? No.

"So again, you don’t get involved directly with your own performance because I’m not an actor, I don’t judge if I ‘acted’ good or not.

"I did my job and I think I judge my job from what we achieve at the race track. If Netflix looks good or bad, I don’t really care about that."

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