Honestly, it’s hard to remember what being an F1 fan felt like before the cameras started rolling into the hospitality suites.
Before the memes. Before Guenther Steiner became a household name for his colorful vocabulary. Before every casual sports fan in America suddenly had an opinion on tire degradation. Formula 1 Drive to Survive Season 1 didn't just document a racing season; it basically saved a sport that was drifting toward irrelevance in the digital age.
When Liberty Media bought F1 in 2017, the "Paddock" was a closed-off fortress. Bernie Ecclestone famously didn't care about social media. He didn't care about the youth. He wanted the guy with the Rolex. But then Netflix showed up with Box to Box Films and James Gay-Rees—the guy behind the Senna documentary—and they decided to ignore the front of the grid entirely.
That was the genius move.
Instead of obsessing over Lewis Hamilton’s march to another title, the show went deep into the midfield. It focused on the people who were one bad weekend away from losing their jobs. It made us care about Haas. Haas! A team that usually finishes at the back was suddenly the main character.
The Daniel Ricciardo Gamble That Paid Off
You’ve gotta remember where Daniel Ricciardo was in 2018. He was the "Honey Badger," the guy with the biggest smile in the pit lane, but he was also facing a massive career crisis. Formula 1 Drive to Survive Season 1 leaned heavily on his story. Episode one, "All to Play For," sets the tone by following Ricciardo through his home race in Melbourne.
It wasn't about the aerodynamics of the front wing. It was about his anxiety. It was about the contract pressure.
Netflix captured the raw tension between Ricciardo and Max Verstappen at Red Bull Racing. We saw the aftermath of the Baku crash—that infamous moment where they took each other out on the main straight. The show didn't just show the debris; it showed the icy silence in the debrief room. It gave us Christian Horner, the Red Bull Team Principal, playing the role of the frustrated parent.
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This was the first time we saw F1 drivers as actual humans rather than corporate-sponsored robots in fireproof suits. Ricciardo’s decision to leave Red Bull for Renault was the emotional climax of the season. At the time, pundits thought he was crazy. The show made us understand why he felt he had to run.
Why Haas and Guenther Steiner Stole the Show
If you asked a casual observer in 2017 who Guenther Steiner was, they’d have no clue. Now? He’s a legend.
The producers of Formula 1 Drive to Survive Season 1 realized early on that the most compelling drama isn't at the front of the pack where Mercedes was winning everything by thirty seconds. The real drama is at the bottom, where millions of dollars in prize money depend on a single pit stop.
The episode "Under Pressure" is arguably the best hour of sports television produced in the last decade. It covers the 2018 Australian Grand Prix where Haas had both cars in the top five, only to have both retire within minutes of each other because of cross-threaded wheel nuts.
Steiner’s reaction was legendary.
"We look like a bunch of wankers."
That single line changed the brand of the team. It humanized the failure. You felt the gut-punch. Most sports broadcasts skip over the mechanics, but Netflix put the camera right in the face of the guy who failed to secure the tire. It was brutal. It was honest.
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The Absence of Ferrari and Mercedes
It’s a weird fact that people often forget: Mercedes and Ferrari didn't want anything to do with Formula 1 Drive to Survive Season 1.
Toto Wolff and Maurizio Arrivabene said "no thanks" to the cameras. They thought it was a distraction. They thought they were too big for a Netflix docuseries.
In hindsight, this was the best thing that could have happened for the fans. Because the "Big Two" opted out, the show was forced to focus on:
- Force India’s financial collapse and the Lawrence Stroll takeover.
- Carlos Sainz fighting for his seat at Renault.
- Fernando Alonso’s slow-motion burnout at a struggling McLaren.
- Pierre Gasly’s emotional rollercoaster at Toro Rosso.
By the time Season 2 rolled around, Mercedes and Ferrari realized they had made a massive marketing mistake. They saw the "Netflix Effect" happening in real-time. Suddenly, sponsors wanted to be on the Haas car because that’s what people were watching. The giants eventually joined the show, but Season 1 remains the purest version because it wasn't filtered through the PR machines of the championship leaders.
Creative Liberty vs. Factual Racing
We have to talk about the "fake" sounds.
If you’re a die-hard gearhead, you probably noticed that the engine sounds in Season 1 don't always match the cars on screen. They’d use a V10 scream for a V6 Turbo Hybrid car. They’d edit in radio messages from a completely different lap to make a pass look more dramatic.
Is it "fake"? Sorta.
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It’s "constructed reality." The show uses these techniques to convey the feeling of being in the cockpit. If you just watch a static T-cam shot of an F1 car, it looks surprisingly smooth. But Netflix uses foley sound and rapid-fire editing to show how violent these cars actually are.
Max Verstappen famously boycotted the show for a while because he felt they manufactured rivalries. He wasn't entirely wrong. The "feud" between Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso in Season 1 was almost entirely a product of the editing room. They’re actually good friends. But for the sake of a narrative arc, Netflix needed a "Master vs. Apprentice" storyline.
The Economics of the Netflix Effect
The impact of Formula 1 Drive to Survive Season 1 on the business side of the sport is staggering.
According to data from Nielsen, the F1 fanbase in the U.S. exploded by over 10% shortly after the premiere. But it wasn't just about the number of people; it was the demographic. The average age of an F1 fan dropped significantly. For the first time, teenage girls and young adults were tuning into practice sessions on a Friday morning.
The 2018 season, which the show covers, was actually a pretty standard year on track. Lewis Hamilton won his fifth title. Sebastian Vettel’s title challenge crumbled after his crash at Hockenheim. But through the lens of Netflix, it felt like a high-stakes thriller.
What You Should Do Next
If you’re just getting into the sport or looking to revisit the series, don't just binge-watch and move on. To really appreciate what the show did, you should:
- Watch the 2018 Australian Grand Prix highlights on YouTube right after watching Episode 1. You’ll see the massive difference between how a "race" is broadcast and how a "story" is told.
- Follow the money. Look up the current valuations of teams like Williams and Haas compared to 2018. The "Netflix Effect" added hundreds of millions in value to these franchises because they are now media properties, not just racing teams.
- Pay attention to the Team Principals. In Season 1, they are the stars. Christian Horner, Cyril Abiteboul, and Guenther Steiner are the ones driving the plot. This shift in focus from drivers to managers is what makes the show feel like Succession on wheels.
The show basically created a new genre: the "Fly-on-the-wall sports soap opera." Without the success of this first season, we wouldn't have the golf equivalent (Full Swing), the tennis version (Break Point), or the Tour de France series.
Formula 1 Drive to Survive Season 1 was the proof of concept that sports are better when you stop talking about the stats and start talking about the stress. It’s not about who wins; it’s about what they lose when they don’t.
To get the most out of your re-watch, pay close attention to the Renault vs. Red Bull tension. It sets the stage for the massive technical shifts we see in the later seasons. Watch the background of the shots—the luxury, the tension in the garages, and the sheer scale of the paddock. It's a world that was once hidden, and now, we're all invited in.