Wags, drivers like the Kardashians, power struggles in Game of Thrones style—has Drive to Survive gone too far with its storytelling about Formula 1?
We’ve reached the seventh season of the sports docuseries, and Netflix continues to showcase both sides of the premier class: the sporting aspect and the more glamorous one. Produced since 2019 with the goal of summarizing the F1 championship through the voices of its key figures, DTS has garnered both praise and controversy.
In a constantly evolving world, where even cinema has modernized and experimented with new genres, it was only a matter of time before sports adapted to audience demands.
Netflix knows exactly what people want, and over the seasons, it has carefully listened, scouring social media—the ideal “town square” for gathering ideas. And by digging deep into the web, the streaming giant has realized that to tell a good story, you need heroes and villains.
In the latest season, released on March 7, Drive to Survive focuses on the rivalry between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. The storytelling follows a Hollywood-style narrative, where the former is the ultimate antagonist (you’ll recall Verstappen’s initial refusal to participate in Netflix interviews), and the latter is the hero finally rising to prominence.
Have we really come to this? Has Formula 1 become a TV show in the hands of the platform? Yet, DTS has its pros and cons.
Drive to Survive: Pros and cons of an ambitious project
Formula 1: Drive to Survive was created with the intent to tell the story of an F1 season from the unique perspective of drivers, managers, team principals, and key sports figures. Through their voices, we discover a sport where friendships don’t exist once the helmet goes on, while rivalries are abundant.
Since DTS exploded in 2019, Formula 1 has gained increasing popularity overseas, where the sport had somewhat lost its appeal.
We’ve reached a point where figures like Günther Steiner have become fan favorites. So much so that when Haas let him go, Netflix was left scrambling, having lost one of the show’s main characters.
The same happened with Daniel Ricciardo, one of the American audience’s favorites. The DTS crew clearly struggled to let him go, just like when an actor leaves the cast of your favorite TV series.
On one hand, Drive to Survive has done nothing but good for Formula 1, bringing more people into the sport. On the other hand, it has almost turned it into entertainment. The docuseries often tends to exaggerate stories, making them more dramatic.
This creates the feeling of being inside a movie, where we just have to choose whether to root for the hero or the villain. This has led to criticism from drivers like Verstappen, who have argued that the storytelling is not always truthful.
In the end, the final say belongs to the viewer/fan, who must distinguish between what is real and what is fiction. Understanding how to watch Drive to Survive: it’s a docuseries, a popcorn flick, an entertainment show. There’s no point in getting upset about how the events are presented—otherwise, you might as well watch a documentary.
Source: f1ingenerale
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