Formula 1: Drive To Survive review | 9 talking points

1. It didn’t need to manufacture much drama

Fortunately for the producers, behind the scenes of the 2023 F1 season, plenty was going on to follow. Alpine’s almost total in-season meltdown, Nyck De Vries' struggles, the return of Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton considering his future at Mercedes as the German giant still struggled to name just a few. 

That’s the kind of thing in which Drive to Survive has always revelled. Some of the series’ finest moments are the result of behind-the-scenes bitching. Take Christian Horner and Cyril Abiteboul’s angry confrontation over Ricciardo in DTS’s first season or Guenther Steiner’s reaction to, well, just about anything. We’re all messy for drama, and DTS panders to that.

2. It felt a little rushed

In a season with very few on-track stories, it still felt like the DTS team had so many options for what to cover off-track that they struggled to decide which to choose. That led to some storylines feeling halfway between contrived and rushed.

Nyck De Vries got a full 20 minutes on his entire F1 career, never really delving into what caused the Dutchman to be jettisoned. James Vowels was perhaps the breakout star of the series, but his efforts to begin the turnaround of Williams didn’t really seem to mention how it went. Somehow Logan Sargeant’s struggles to step up into F1 didn’t seem to happen.

3. And yet it starts and finishes slow

This has always been one Drive to Survive’s problems. The opening episodes have to set the scene for the season at testing and, unless the cameras have mysteriously picked who was going to have an insta-crisis, it is unlikely the first episode will have any shockers. 

But every single narrative thread for the season, other than a half-arsed fight for second in the Constructors’ Championship (be still, my beating heart) was done months before season end. So there wasn’t an awful lot at the end of the season to be excited for – other than the idea that the torment was nearly over. Perhaps this was one of the reasons the series struggled is that it couldn’t find a cohesive on-track narrative to weave through its sixth go, something that NASCAR: Full Speed did extremely well. So finding something to tie it all up in a little bow was difficult. But either way, the final episode and a half did feel like a bit of a slog.

4. James Vowles is a new star

James Vowles could not be more different than Guenther Steiner if he tried. But the series’ producers will be extremely pleased that the likeable Englishman has arrived at Williams just as its standout behind-the-scenes stars either lose their job or seem like they might.

Vowles came across as calm, and extremely detail-orientated, to the point of being nerdy about things as important as coffee. I wanted to hear more from him than the little glimpses we got, and certainly felt like he offered more intrigue in a brand new role than watching Guenther Steiner sign some books at Waterstones. 

5. DTS will miss Steiner but will he miss it?

It’s weird to think that a 58-year-old former rally mechanic is someone who teenage girls will queue up to get an autograph from, but that has been the impact of Drive to Survive on Steiner’s life. 

Sweary, happy to say what he wants and perfectly content to seem a little silly, the Italian has held the whole show together at times. But this year he seemed a little different. Whether the producers had chosen to portray him that way knowing that was coming at series end we can’t be sure, but Steiner cut a slightly subdued figure in the 2023 series. 

We might be reading a little into it, but especially as he spoke at the end of the series, it felt a little bit like Steiner was ready to leave Formula 1. His contract not being renewed felt like a good parting of ways for both sides. This is perhaps the insight that the series does best, those smaller moments that give you some insight into the bigger changes in the paddock.

6. The same things will annoy fans

Thought that watching cars bake into corners while hearing them accelerate out might be a thing of the past? Well, that was wishful thinking I’m afraid. There’s lots and lots of it, and all the other things that have riled long-term F1 fans since DTS began. 

It’s the kind of thing that a casual observer might not notice, but that will infuriate a more fastidious viewer. Like cutting from the track at Singapore to what was obviously the pit wall at Silverstone. Making out that Liam Lawson jumped straight into the AlphaTauri for the first time at Singapore when he was in his third race. Cutting in footage of drivers weaving for tyre temp behind the safety car just after they’ve exited a corner.

The most egregious I find is the radio calls clipped into action on the first lap of a race. “Stroll 0.7” called when the Canadian’s Aston Martin is clearly right in front. It’s the stuff that F1 probably doesn’t really need to fake, you only have to watch an F1 race to see how reliant it is on radio conversation for excitement to see how interesting and important it can be.

7. Max Who?

How would the Box To Box production team deal with the fact that Red Bull won all but one race and Max Verstappen was champion literal months before season end? 

Simple really. Ignore it. The whole season might as well have gone ahead without Red Bull existing other than Christian Horner and Daniel Ricciardo. Other than Max looking grumpy at Las Vegas and hanging around in the background, or struggling at Singapore, there was no sign of the now triple World Champion.

Is that a good thing? Maybe. Don’t try to make something that wasn’t interesting, interesting. But it did leave a weird elephant lurking just in the corner of the TV.

8. Some extra BTS access appeared

We all know that a lot of the conversations or meetings are re-recorded for television purposes. Newsflash, Mercedes didn’t really allow Netflix into its negotiations with Lewis Hamilton over a new contract, and they don’t just consist of Hamilton and Toto Wolff. But there were a few moments that seemed to offer a little bit of extra spice to the storylines.

First the conversations between Zak Brown and his boss about the team needing to move forward soon. Possibly re-recorded later, but it definitely gave the viewer a small insight into the pressures that do exist. He was later seen conversing with people from Android over its concerns about sponsoring a team languishing in the lower mid-table.

There were also moments during the Alpine meltdown on extra conversations around the downfall of Otmar Szafnauer. Closed room conversations that perhaps we weren’t meant to hear. It added just a little interest into the season.

9. Overall unmissable

Annoyingly, no matter how you feel about the problems that Formula 1: Drive to Survive undoubtedly has, you still have to watch it these days. If you want to know what people are talking about for pretty much the next year, you need to watch all ten episodes.

The insights aren’t world-breaking, and the production isn’t amazing, but it’s more than we ever got before and it has undoubtedly helped grow the sport far beyond its old bounds. Drive to Survive is compulsory watching.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images