"F1 AGAIN? NEVER SAY NEVER. BUT IT WOULD HAVE TO BE A PROJECT. I'M DONE WITH JOBS"

Drive to Survive made the then Haas principal a household name, yet his switch to F1 came late in his career. Here he talks of his rally years, a pivotal call from Niki Lauda and his decision to trade four-wheeled racing for two

- Matt Bishop meets: Guenther Steiner

Guenther Steiner is that rare thing in modern motor sport: a genuine character; a straight-talking, old-school racer in an era of corporate jargon and marketing polish.

Not despite that, but rather because of it, he has become a cult hero to millions thanks to his gloriously unfiltered appearances on Netflix's Formula 1: Drive to Survive, cussing his way into the hearts of fans across the globe. But, while the world may have discovered him quite recently as the irascible boss of the Haas Formula 1 team, swearing at broken front wings, poor strategy calls, and of course his wincing drivers, his story is far longer, far more varied, and far more interesting than that.

Now 60, Steiner has spent four decades in the racing world, from the rough-and-tumble stages of rallying to the glossy boardrooms of F1 factories, without ever applying for any of the jobs that propelled him forwards. The only position for which he has ever formally applied was his very first: as a Mazda rally mechanic in Belgium. That was in 1986. He has never sent a CV since.

And, now, with his F1 chapter closed - for the moment, anyway - he is about to reinvent himself yet again, this time as a MotoGP team owner. Yes, really: the man who once ran Jaguar's F1 setup for Niki Lauda, and built Haas F1 from nothing, is now going two-wheeled. As Steiner puts it, "It's cool as shit."