Following a duopoly atop the World Championships for decades, McLaren finally broke through to unseat Red Bull Racing last season. Increased competition and a new storyline greatly helped to bring attention to Formula One.
Now, thanks to its successful entry and growth in the enriching United States market, F1 is enjoying new heights of popularity. This has been reflected in the exclusive showing of the races on Apple TV, which surpassed expectations.
However, another element of F1’s surge over the last decade has been a certain documentary series. Netflix’s Drive to Survive has been game-changing for the globe-trotting sport.
The fly-on-the-wall take on the usually extremely secretive F1 has welcomed millions of new fans who follow the sport and watch the show. Its massive impact, though, does appear to be wobbling a bit.
Still a Wildly Popular Show
Drive to Survive Season 8 dropped on Netflix at the end of February. On arrival, the eight-episode season broke the top ten with over 16 million hours watched. By its second week, it charted fifth with 18.5 million hours in the log.
To slightly contextualize those figures with other reports, let’s assume it takes six hours to watch the whole show, and then everyone who started it finished Season 8 within two weeks – just to estimate the viewership figure.
On these numbers, that would mean that 3.1 million people watched this run of Drive to Survive. This compares favorably to just the opening week of Season 7 (2.6 million) and Season 6 (2.9 million).
That said, both of these seasons saw a decent increase in viewership hours as Week 2 figures came in. The last season did, however, run ten episodes instead of eight. Even so, clearly, these figures are enough to rank highly.
Netflix is the biggest streaming platform on the planet, so ranking in the top ten is a huge achievement. Throw in the cultural impact the show continues to have to promote those in F1, and its value remains undeniable.
Building Out with the Momentum
Drive to Survive has been able to bring driver personalities to the fore, create fan bases for charismatic characters behind the scenes, and even generate a new level of celebrity intrigue around the paddock at every race.
Even so, viewership in Drive to Survive is on the decline, and Netflix is well known for bringing down the guillotine on popular shows long before it’s due. So, there should be a further exploration of entertainment for F1.
The sport has done exceedingly well in online streaming and could do so in other forms of online entertainment. Already, the digital libraries of bingo games feature both sports and branded offerings that continue to do very well.
The recent addition of Sports Arena, in time for the World Cup, is now a fan favorite, and the official Game of Thrones slot has rarely faded from the Hot Game section. Combining sport and the brand of F1 here could be a way to go.
Another would be far more costly and bring about more of an annual spike as opposed to a potentially enduring one. Adding more locations to the calendar or opening up a regular slot for new tracks could grow the sport further.
Looking at the F1 calendar’s map for 2026, Africa is conspicuously absent from the slate. Other nations in major sports markets, like France and India, are also notably absent from the tour, as is the legendary Nürburgring track.
Formula One is enjoying tremendous levels of interest, popularity, and fandom right now. Yet, with tires starting to wobble on Drive to Survive, the sport should explore more ways to continue its growth.
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