Max Verstappen once crudely made his point about how the Formula 1: Drive to Survive series is edited by saying that it had made Lando Norris look like "a bit of a d**k".
Series five of the Netflix show was released on Friday and promises another exciting look behind the scenes of the big stories of the 2022 F1 season. The show has been praised for attracting new fans to the sport, but has also come in for criticism over how it portrays some scenes.
Verstappen has been particularly vocal about it in the past. Winning his first title in the 2021 season should have been one of the major parts of the fourth series, but the producers couldn't go into as much depth as they would have liked – because he refused to sit down for interviews with the Netflix crew.
The Red Bull racer has explained on many occasions exactly why he chose to boycott the show. One one occasion, he rather crudely used his friend and McLaren rival Norris as an example of why it bother him so much.
"It's just not my thing. They try to pick moments throughout the season and fabricate it in a way," the Dutchman explained. "For me, personally, what I didn’t like was about Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo. I think they are two great guys, really nice first of all, and they made it look like Lando was a bit of a d**k, which he isn't at all.
"Again, I know Lando and I think many people know Lando. He's a funny guy, a great guy, he has a great character and when you look at that episode you think 'who is this guy? What is going on?'
"I think when you are new to the sport and you've never seen a Formula 1 car in general, they do not like him and why should that be, because he is a great guy. You just immediately get a wrong picture of a person and that's exactly what I think about me in the beginning.
"I'm someone who when you ruin it from the start, you don't fix it. That's it, you've ruined it. So that's my stance and that's how I'll go forward." Verstappen has since softened that stance though, agreeing to take part in the new series released this week after holding talks with the producers.
After explaining those talks, he made it clear that he would be keeping a close eye on how the new series portrays events and could U-turn again if unhappy. "We'll see once it comes out what they made of it," he concluded.
