The latest season of Drive to Survive is set to land on Friday (7 March) and the teasers and trailers promise more of the same from the super successful series.
But what has the impact been on Formula 1, its fandom and the wider media landscape? Our writers offer their views.
The dramatisation reeled in a new audience but caused consternation with its core – Jake Boxall-Legge
I don't think it's possible to overstate the impact that Drive to Survive has had on Formula 1. Fans, sponsors, manufacturers, and nations are queuing up to be involved in the championship and profit from not only the season as it unfolds, but to potentially benefit from a second wave of interest when the Netflix series is unleashed upon the world. For better, or for worse - that's the subjective bit.
But when you're part of that world, even tangentially, watching the series doesn't really do anything for you. You know that certain situations are manufactured, and that season-defining events are often dramatically rehashed for the spectacle. The scalpel-waggling around radio messages to reorder them for theatrical means has long been a grievance among the drivers, most of whom welcome the Netflix camera crew but would prefer the chosen story strands to adequately reflect real events.
The argument is that F1 is dramatic enough. Each weekend is a smorgasbord of contretemps, skulduggery, and betrayal, but it sometimes feels like those moments often pass the Netflix editors by, simply because a storyline is already in mind. The 'heroes' and 'villains' appear pre-ordained, painting a picture of some moralistic good-versus-evil parable in a 40-odd minute docudrama, and the perspective is created to suit that.
Or, alternatively, the histrionics are interspersed with dull and formulaic takes on a midfield team or driver. The cameras follow them about a bit as they do mundane things at home, they go to a race, finish 12th, and then that's either celebrated as a facsimile of victory or as bad as the heat death of the universe.
For those reading that don't appreciate the cynical view and will take it upon themselves to suggest "if you don't like it, don't watch it" - don't worry, I've not watched since the first season. I know that it's not meant for me. But as someone who revels in the esoteric and tries to tell either unknown or forgotten stories from motorsport, I'd love something like that. I don't care what one-syllable epithet Christian Horner directed at Zak Brown, or who the best padel player on the grid is, or what Esteban Ocon's top 10 methods of cooking potatoes are.
Actually, no - that latter point actually sounds quite fun...
Perfect viewing for a post-truth epoch – Stuart Codling
In Michael Winterbottom’s 2002 movie 24 Hour Party People, which chronicles the ‘Madchester’ music scene largely through the eyes of the late music promoter Tony Wilson, there’s a scene where Buzzcocks guitarist Howard Devoto is portrayed having sex with Wilson’s first wife in a nightclub toilet. The camera dollies in towards the cleaner working in the background – temporary freezeframe as the caption flashes up “The real Howard Devoto” – and he looks straight down the lens and says, “I definitely don’t remember this happening…”
This breaking of the fourth wall is just one of many moments where this freewheeling not-quite-documentary playfully acknowledges that it’s driving a proverbial coach and horses through the notion of objective truth as portrayed on screen. It’s done with wit, intelligence and panache – and stakes no claim to historical authenticity.
I wish we could say the same of Drive to Survive, but then again we do live in an era in which Napoleon has recently been depicted firing cannons at the great pyramids of Egypt, and indeed Denzel Washington enjoying his morning newspaper in Gladiator 2, some 1500 years before the invention of the moveable-type printing press.
From episode one, Drive to Survive has been a hot mess of fakery, a fictionalised version of real events ruthlessly reassembled in an edit suite with amped-up crash noises and made-up ‘commentary’. There are those who say it has “gone too far” in recent seasons, presenting specially shot scenes that never happened in real life – I’d say it merrily splashed through that Rubicon in its waders years ago.
In subjugating fact for entertainment, Drive to Survive is giving its viewers what F1’s bigwigs would sell their grandmothers to achieve: ‘peak end effect’ in every race. It offers a fictional parallel-world F1 with never a dull moment. As Denzel Washington might say, having set aside his yet-to-be-invented newspaper and drained the dregs of a coffee that won’t be introduced to Italy until the 16th century: “Are you not entertained?”
Or were those words uttered by someone else? Who cares? Drive to Survive is perfect viewing for a post-truth era in which people spend half their lives arguing with other people over whether something happened or not.
Indeed, it would be a twist worthy of Pirandello if at some point the action cut, and an actor playing one of the drivers walked into the scene and said: “I definitely don’t remember this happening…”
A boom to F1 popularity but a headache for journalists – Ben Hunt
The boost F1 has received globally from Drive to Survive has been widely reported, but for journalists, the series has also been a problem.
When filming began on the first series, there was talk about a waiver in that we agreed for our faces and voices to be used in the making of the show. The majority of people in the paddock did not have a problem, for there are numerous TV crews working over the course of the weekend. What difference would another one make?
Only, unlike the other crews, the Netflix camera and sound crew would soon realise that us journalists were the ones generating the off-track storylines. Pretty soon, they were filming and recording everything. A camera at every interview, even one-on-ones that had been arrange privately were now seen as fair game.
But probably worse than the filming aspect of said interviews, as that was fairly obvious, would be how they’d frequently drop a boom mic overhead to record our private conversations.
As journalists, we frequently discuss story ideas and the general line of questioning we would be aiming for. These are interspersed with questions about dinner plans or even what was going on in someone’s private life, away from F1. Yet unbeknown at times, you’d happen to look up to see the dreaded microphone recording your every word. We had signed up our rights to have our faces included in the show, but this had now strayed into an invasion of privacy.
There have also been a number of examples where items in the show have been included for effect without any context. And without any heads up to the journalists involved, which has led to backlashes on social media. I received numerous messages of abuse following a frank discussion with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff where the context of our exchange was never given to the viewers. It is worth pointing out that, while the teams get to see the footage beforehand and the right to remove some of the content, that does not apply to individuals in the media.
The other aspect is the storylines they present. As journalists, we pride ourselves on getting the facts right, but the integrity of the storylines presented in Drive to Survive are frequently questioned, however, there is not one figure who is made culpable.
Ultimately, as writers we know it has opened up a massive fanbase, which is younger and more diverse and for that we are grateful. But the flip side is the one the viewers do not get to witness and the impact it has on our working environment.
