Guenther Steiner Q&A: On NASCAR, Red Bull’s F1 reign and Netflix fame

Fox Sports’ NASCAR broadcasts have had a variety of rotating analysts join play-by-play announcer Mike Joy and color commentator Clint Bowyer in the booth over the past couple seasons. Former crew chief Larry McReynolds will be back this weekend at Richmond Raceway, with Tony Stewart and Danica Patrick having already served as guest analysts for multiple races this season.

But the most eye-catching addition so far? Guenther Steiner, the Haas F1 Team principal, joined the Fox booth along with Kurt Busch at Circuit of the Americas last weekend.

Steiner, the breakout star of the Netflix “Drive to Survive” series, used to work in NASCAR (he was technical director of the short-lived Red Bull Racing NASCAR team) and still maintains a home in the Charlotte, N.C. area.

Prior to his booth duties last weekend, The Athletic sat down with Steiner to get his thoughts on TV, NASCAR, F1 and his newfound fame.

Why did you want to do this?

(Fox Sports asked) if I could do a guest appearance. It was like, “Yeah, why not?” And then you don’t think too much about it. We had a meeting in January, and I didn’t hear anything for awhile, and then I was called up and I said, “Yeah.” Then I had to try to explain it to my wife, because I’ve got a weekend at home (between F1’s Saudi Arabia and Australia races) and now I’m going to do the booth. But she’s (in Austin) as well; my family came out.

Why am I going to do it? I like racing. I worked in NASCAR. I always want to do something new to learn, get the experience and see how it is. It’s always easy to critique when you see people doing stuff, but when you do it yourself, you get a completely different kind of view. That opens my eyes and I can get better in my job by understanding the other side of the job. Because my normal work is completely the other side; I’m the person who is spoken about. It’s something new. To get a little bit out of your comfort zone sometimes is nice to do.

Was the idea to lean on your F1 knowledge of this track, your NASCAR experience, or both?

The idea was to blend them. I know a little bit about NASCAR and understand it pretty well; I’ve lived here (in the United States) for 16 years. And if you’ve always done motorsport in your life and you’re in the States, you watch NASCAR, obviously.

It’s a little bit of everything. There is not one specific thing I’m there to compare. It’s more like the lighthearted version of what different race cars are doing. And we have got those two former F1 champions (Kimi Raikkonen and Jenson Button, who drove in Sunday’s NASCAR race) as well, which is pretty cool.

How do you look back at your NASCAR experience as technical director of the Red Bull team? You came into the sport during a very difficult time with big fields, and Red Bull struggled to make races. Do you view that period as a positive or negative for you?

Very positive. For a European to go to the States and be allowed to do this, it’s a…