Formula 1: Drive to Survive has faced criticism since its 2018 debut for what some F1 fans regard as an overly dramatised approach to its storytelling. Some of that criticism is entirely fair, and some is probably a bit haughty and skirts a little too close to gatekeeping for my liking.
However, despite its faults, Drive to Survive is nonetheless a potent platform for the sport – and it’s one that plays an important role in reminding both dedicated and casual fans alike that there’s far, far more going on in Formula 1 than just who’s standing on top of the podium. Season 6 is no exception and, if anything, it’s a particularly welcome watch after a 2023 F1 championship that was both one of the most predictable in recent memory, and the most one-sided in the entire history of the sport.
Drive to Survive season 6 tugs on a number of threads from last year, with several of the most noteworthy stories covered and a majority of the teams featured in some capacity (with the apparent exception of Alfa Romeo, which seems virtually anonymous in this series).
The season starts strongly, with a trifecta of sturdy episodes based around Aston Martin’s surprisingly explosive start to the season, the problems at AlphaTauri as the struggling Nyck de Vries is dropped in favour of bringing Daniel Ricciardo back into F1, and McLaren’s quicker-than-expected turnaround in form. Episode 2, in particular, is quite well done; I certainly felt sympathetic for de Vries, who is a Formula 2 and Formula E champion, but it was also fascinating to see Ricciardo’s first reaction to the news that his brief time on the sideline was over.
Fan favourite Haas team principal Guenther Steiner returns as a key focus of episode 4, and the show does well juxtaposing the loose and foul-mouthed Italian against new Williams team principal James Vowles. What a possible season 7 will do without Steiner at the helm of Haas is anyone’s guess.
After a sharp first half, the season is tripped up slightly with its episode 6 focus on the will-he-or-won’t-he drama of Lewis Hamilton re-signing with Mercedes. While there’s some interesting dramatic irony at work watching Toto Wolff quip how red overalls wouldn’t suit Hamilton, it does have the unavoidable consequence of making the series seem off the pulse considering the news that Hamilton will be moving to Ferrari in 2025 broke at the start of this month.
It does seem a little odd that Max Verstappen’s record-breaking season is essentially relegated to a short, 45-second summary at the end of episode 10, but we probably did hear enough about it already during 2023. Verstappen does return to contribute here in season 6 on a handful of occasions, although there’s not a ton of substance to his interview responses.
It remains aberrant that the series continues to layer unrelated radio audio over spicy on-track moments, and making it appear Lando Norris is really crowing “Yeah baby!” in episode 3 after getting the holeshot on Verstappen on just the first corner of the British GP is pretty cringe worthy.
Carlos Sainz’s ice-cold Singapore victory is surprisingly over-simplified in episode 8, which is doubly disappointing considering Ferrari’s win here was literally the only GP won by a team other than Red Bull all season. There’s absolutely no breakdown of Sainz’s fascinating strategy to deliberately slow down and let second-placed Norris into DRS range, in order to allow Norris to defend against the charging George Russell in third. The McLaren is effectively trimmed out of the whole sequence. Drive to Survive would’ve been the perfect environment to break down this drama, and it’s actively baffling they’ve ignored it wholesale.
Oscar Piastri’s inaugural F1 campaign turning into the best rookie season since Lewis Hamilton feels like low-hanging fruit that the show has also peculiarly ignored, and his win at the Qatar Sprint event goes unmentioned. Besides the Singapore GP, it was the only other race not won by Red Bull – though the series does have form for disregarding Sprints. Liam Lawson’s cameo role following Ricciardo’s injury in Zandvoort is covered in episode 9, although jumping straight to Singapore as if it was his debut race is an odd edit, and fudging the AlphaTauri 2024 driver announcement timeline is cheap. I’d argue the episode is also a little unfair on Yuki Tsunoda, considering he did earn most of the points the team required to secure eighth place in the constructors’ championship himself.
Of course, Drive to Survive does need to shrink an entire season of racing and 22 Grands Prix into just 10 short episodes of TV – so it is admittedly understandable that some concessions have to be made. Making do with slightly fewer of the increasingly common self-referential allusions to Drive to Survive within the series itself would free up a little headroom, although I will say Alexander Albon’s good-natured banter around how excited Netflix will be to have Ricciardo return (and his hypothetical sizzle reel of how the streamer will present the situation) is pretty good gear.
