''Formula 1: Drive to Survive'' is a British

television documentary Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. * Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

series produced in a collaboration between

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

and

Formula One Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula Auto racing, racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one ...

, to give a behind-the-scenes look at the drivers and races of the Formula One World Championship. The series has received one season per year since 2019, and a total of seven seasons have been released, with the latest season aired on 7 March 2025. A crossover event with '' Full Swing'' broadcast on Netflix in November 2023 called '' The Netflix Cup''.

Production and concept

On 24 March 2018, Formula One announced that Netflix had commissioned a ten episode documentary-series giving an exclusive behind the scenes look at the

2018 Formula One World Championship The 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship was the motor racing championship for Formula One cars and the 69th running of the Formula One World Championship. Formula One is recognised by the governing body of international motorsport, the ...

. On 24 July 2019, Formula One announced that a second season would premiere in 2020 covering the

2019 Formula One World Championship The 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship was the motor racing championship for Formula One cars which marked the 70th running of the Formula One World Championship. It is recognised by the governing body of international motorsport, the F� ...

, involving all 10 teams. The series is executively produced by

James Gay-Rees James Gay-Rees is a British film producer. He has been involved in the production of numerous films, including critically acclaimed documentaries '' Senna'' (2010) and '' Amy'' (2015), for which he won numerous awards and nominations. Graduatin ...

and Paul Martin for the production company, Box to Box Films. Sophie Todd is the production's showrunner. Gay-Rees subsequently went on to reveal to ''The Fast Lane Podcast'' that ''Drive to Survive'' had originally been conceived as a series revolving solely around

Red Bull Racing Red Bull Racing, currently competing as Oracle Red Bull Racing and also known simply as Red Bull or RBR, is a Formula One racing team, List of Formula One constructors#Team's nationality, competing under an Austrian racing licence and based in ...

before it evolved into a series about F1 in general. Filming began for the 2020 season in March but was suspended until July due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Episodes

Season 1 (2019)

Season 2 (2020)

Season 3 (2021)

Season 4 (2022)

Season 5 (2023)

Season 6 (2024)

Season 7 (2025)

Reception

The show has received recognition for the additional insight it offers fans, and is credited with attracting new audiences (particularly American) to the sport. The condensing of season-long themes into single-episode narratives has drawn praise for adapting "the natural drama of a racing season into a narrative that can encourage a fan to tune into the real thing." However, ''Drive to Survive'' has been criticized for including fake or misplaced commentary and team radios, staging certain scenes, placing undue importance on test and practice sessions, and over-dramatizing or misrepresenting certain events and relationships within the Formula One paddock. The continued criticism from both audiences and drivers led to discussions between Netflix and team managers and between Formula One and drivers.

Max Verstappen Max Emilian Verstappen (; born 30 September 1997) is a Dutch and Belgian racing driver who competes under the Dutch flag in Formula One for Red Bull Racing. Verstappen has won four Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles, which he w ...

refused to participate in interviews for seasons 3 and 4 as he believed that the show dramatized some drivers by portraying them as villains and that the show manufactured fake rivalries. However, he participated again in

season 5 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

after reaching an agreement with the producers to "keep it real".

Awards and nominations

Spin-offs

In 2020, a series similar to ''Drive to Survive'' was released on F1 TV based on the

2019 Formula 2 Championship The 2019 FIA Formula 2 Championship was the fifty-third season of the second-tier of Formula One feeder championship and also third season under the moniker of FIA Formula 2 Championship, a motor racing championship for Formula 2 cars that is ...

, called '' Chasing the Dream''. Subsequent second and third seasons were produced, each covering the

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

and

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

F2 Championships, premiering in 2021 and 2022 respectively. The fourth and fifth seasons, based on the

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

and

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

F2 Championships, were released on F1 TV as well as free-to-air on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

during the respective years. Other motorsports series have jumped on the "Drive to Survive train", with Formula E, NASCAR and IndyCar all showing their own respective docuseries.

References

External links

* * {{Netflix original series 2010s American documentary television series 2019 American television series debuts 2020s American documentary television series Documentary television series about sports American English-language television shows Netflix original documentary television series Formula One on television