The whole reason for my visiting England was that Guenther Steiner started touring the United Kingdom with this thing called “An Evening/Afternoon with Guenther Steiner” – it is his booktour basically. My take on this was that he is hilarious, I don’t even care what he is talking about, even if he just explains how to make scrambled eggs, I want to be there. Then I also learnt that there will be another event where he signs his new book, so I signed up for that too – hence my two dates with him.
What is Guenther Steiner in reality? Well, honestly, to me he seemed pretty much the same as on Drive to Survive and in his interviews. I guess on the TV show, they obviously want to show the emotionally heated parts or those bits where he has a strong opinion on something, so to be honest, I expected him to be a bit more harsh based on this.
But let’s start at the beginning – at the book signing. It was set to happen at Waterstones Picadilly, and that store does a lot of signing events, so if there is a new book that you are interested in (motorsport or otherwise), in general I suggest checking their events. The event also warned of long lines and advised to get there early, which I did, with a good 50 minutes before the start.
This meant lining up in front of the store outside, where the bookstore employees could check our tickets, and give us a copy of the book. Of course, there was a 22 GBP fee, which is the price of the signed copy if you want it from the book anyway, so with my girlmaths I can say that the meeting Guenther was basically free.
They let us in 10 minutes before 6 and then with no fanfare he started signing. I was quite in the front, so after the start, I was done in 20 minutes, which produced a personalized signature, a very minimal interaction (very-very minimal because the person in front of me struggled with her camera and it basically took my time away), and a picture.
Our second date was the next day, in the London Palladium, which is a theater and it was basically a talk between Guenther and James Hogg, a scotsman who helped him write his books. 90% of what I have heard was not new to me, because the concept is to go through Guenther’s life obviously focusing on his motorsport career, highlighting those stories that he has already written in his first book, Surviving to Drive. I didn’t really mind this, because it is obviously live, and seeing the baby and child picture of Guenther were priceless!
Then at the intermission, anybody could send in questions that he answered. So we could also hear what Guenther thinks of 2021 Abu Dhabi (this is not new information, I think he said it in a podcast here or there) – it was a mistake, and if not for Michael Masi, Hamilton would be an 8 time champion. He also said that he thinks this year’s WDC will go to Lando (this was also said before somewhere).
As I said at the beginning, he is pretty much the same as you would think he is. I was a bit surprised at his lack of swearing – but there was no reason for it actually, and also how much he wouldn’t say anything bad about anybody. Hogg tried to coax something out of him, teasing him with both Nikita Mazepin (and his dad) and Ralf Schumacher, but he was pretty objective, he said a few jokes at their expense, but that was it.
The ticket for this was 72 GBP (with booking fee included), and you could do a meet and greet as well, for about 150 GBP, which involves getting Guenther merch, but also I obviously got my meet and great for free the previous day.
Guenther has a lot more events like this in his book tour (mainly in the UK, but he already did some other cities), if you would like to have the experience for yourself. Now, if you excuse me, I have to go and read Unfiltered!
Have you read his previous book? What did you think of it?
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