Skill, drama, spectacle and of course entertainment are the elements that should drive Formula One with, hopefully, a fine narrative to push the show along. Netflix certainly believes the sport has a story to tell, even though the two biggest names involved – Ferrari and Mercedes – refused to play ball when their cameras roamed the paddock last season. The result, Formula 1: Drive To Survive, is released on Friday and as it turns out, Netflix perhaps achieved something even more intriguing in their absence. The 10-part series was made by executive producer James Gay-Rees, who was behind the biopic documentaries Senna and Amy. The hyperbolic, faintly ridiculous title aside, he and Netflix have made a very decent fist of it. The fact that it exists at all is indicative of how the sport has changed. Such a project would have been unthinkable under Bernie Ecclestone, and it shows that F1’s owners, Liberty Media, understand that they need to sell that drama, spectacle and entertainment. That said, the series will not prove particularly revelatory to serious fans. Rather it is a pleasing recounting of the 2018 season, with some candid footage that is fascinating at times. There is plenty of slo-mo luxuriating in accidents and, inevitably, some hoary rock licks. Just once, it would be nice for a director to break that mould and see if anything other than tedious soft metal goes well with racing. Why not go mad, and try The Fall or Kitchens of Distinction? But that isn’t a concern for Netflix or Liberty. In terms of enticing in casual viewers and perhaps converting them, they have a fine appetiser for the new season, which begins in Melbourne next week. Quick Guide F1 2019: Teams and drivers Show There have been plenty of drivers switching seats in the buildup to the new season. Daniel Ricciardo has left Red Bull for Renault, with Carlos Sainz moving to McLaren after Fernando Alonso's departure. Frenchman Pierre Gasly has been promoted from Toro Rosso to replace Ricciardo, with British-Thai driver Alex Albon taking his place. Charles Leclerc moves from Sauber to partner Sebastian Vettel at Ferrari, trading places with Kimi Räikkönen (pictured), who will race for a rebranded Alfa Romeo team. Force India are now known as Racing Point, with Lance Stroll joining them from Williams. The British constructor welcomes two new drivers –home hopeful and Formula 2 world champion George Russell and Robert Kubica, who makes his F1 return eight years after suffering life-threatening injuries in a rallying accident. How the teams line up Alfa Romeo Kimi Räikkönen (Fin), Antonio Giovinazzi (It) Ferrari Sebastian Vettel (Ger), Charles Leclerc (Mon) Haas Romain Grosjean (Fr), Kevin Magnussen (Den) McLaren Lando Norris (GB), Carlos Sainz (Sp) Mercedes Lewis Hamilton (GB), Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Racing Point Sergio Pérez (Mex), Lance Stroll (Can) Red Bull Pierre Gasly (Fr), Max Verstappen (Neth) Renault Daniel Ricciardo (Aus), Nico Hülkenburg (Ger) Toro Rosso Alexander Albon (Thai), Daniil Kvyat (Rus) Williams George Russell (GB), Robert Kubica (Pol) Photograph: Cyril Zingaro/KEYSTONE Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback. That said, those viewers may wonder why there is so little footage of the two title protagonists. Ferrari’s decision not to take part, until limited access was granted after the Italian Grand Prix, was not unexpected – under former team principal Maurizio Arrivabene, the team had a bunker mentality. Mercedes’ decision was more surprising, given they are generally very good in terms of access to the media. Their argument was that they did not want to be distracted from competing for the world championship. The show’s other executive producer, Paul Martin, believes they did a disservice to the fans and the sport by not taking part. Yet their absence has allowed other stories room to breathe, which is no bad thing. Guenther Steiner, Haas’s foul-mouthed, acerbic team principal, is one of the documentary’s stars. Photograph: Mark Thompson/Getty Images Taking centre stage and to a certain extent stealing the show is the Haas team principal, Guenther Steiner. The Italian is captivating. A man who is polite, calm and considered in conversation behind the scenes has an impressively acerbic wit and likes to eff and jeff with an alacrity that is glorious. His driver, Romain Grosjean, is often on the receiving end, with Steiner exclaiming during a race: “Just tell him to focus on driving and not fucking whinge. Fucking hell”. Later at a team dinner, Steiner laughingly refers to an out-of-favour Grosjean’s absence. “Romain is not here,” he says. “Maybe he is not here because he doesn’t have any points. Or I didn’t invite him because he doesn’t deserve any food”. After two wheels were not correctly installed at the Australian Grand Prix, costing Haas potentially their best ever finish, Steiner is magnificently blunt as he confesses to team owner Gene Haas. “We could have looked like rock stars,” he says. “But now we look like a fucking bunch of wankers. A bunch of fucking clowns.” The Recap: Sign up for our free roundup of editors’ picks. The mechanic responsible is later seen apologising, red-eyed and visibly distraught. This telling moment emphasis what the series has achieved in capturing the human behind the F1 spectacle. With mechanics usually helmeted and anonymous, the scene is a reminder that very real people and genuine emotion still lie at the heart of the sport. These traits are captured repeatedly. Red Bull’s team principal, Christian Horner, suggests that looking after donkeys would be easier than managing his drivers, during a season of clashes which ended in Daniel Ricciardo’s departure for Renault. Then we have McLaren’s CEO, Zak Brown, coping with a woeful car and the imminent departure of Fernando Alonso, and Claire Williams, the Williams deputy principal with the worst car on the grid, left questioning her own ability to do the job. There is an honesty to much of the series that is refreshing, especially in a sport where the volume of spin and secrecy often leaves little of substance. In a series that Liberty doubtless hope will help promote the sport, it was impressive that Steiner’s accurate description of one of the major issues facing F1 made the cut. He is, as ever, right on the money. “You want to see action, drama, the underdog getting a good result,” he says. “Each race should have a story and that story should not always be Mercedes or Ferrari wins. Because that story gets old pretty quick.”<doc-sep>The makers of Formula One's new Netflix series have accused Mercedes and Ferrari of letting down the sport by not taking part in the programme. Drive to Survive, a 10-part behind-the-scenes documentary filmed last season, will be released on March 8. Eight of F1's 10 teams agreed to provide Netflix with fly-on-the wall access, leading to a number of revealing scenes. But the programme glosses over Lewis Hamilton's championship battle with rival Sebastian Vettel after both Mercedes and Ferrari decided not to participate. The absence of Hamilton, F1's biggest star, and the sport's top two teams, is a major blow to F1's owners Liberty Media who dreamt up the documentary series in order to crack the United States. Indeed, the sport's commercial chief Sean Bratches is listed as an executive producer. "Mercedes and Ferrari wanted to operate under different terms to the rest of the teams, and us, as producers, and Netflix as the broadcasting platform, didn't feel comfortable with that," executive producer Paul Martin said. "It was going to be all-or-nothing and if those terms were good enough for the eight other teams, it should have been good enough for Mercedes and Ferrari, too. "My view is that they did a slight disservice to the fans and the sport by not taking part.<doc-sep>As part of the growing number of 'fly on the wall' documentaries looking inside elite sports teams, such as the New Zealand rugby union team or football clubs like Manchester City and Sunderland, it was only a matter of time until Formula 1 piqued producers' interest. A senior F1 source revealed to me last year that there were two offers on the table for the sport: one from Netflix, and a more lucrative offer from Amazon. IndyCar is coming to COTA 2019! Video of IndyCar is coming to COTA 2019! So why go with Netflix? The thinking is simple: people who subscribe to Netflix do so purely to watch shows and documentaries. They're guaranteed to be possible viewers. Given Amazon's streaming service is an addition to its one-day delivery service, the same would not have been true had F1 gone down that route. That surmised F1's approach towards its first venture into an external digital project. It wanted to do something that would reach a new fanbase and help expand its audience, a challenge Liberty Media has wrangled with since picking up the sport in early 2017. And frankly, this seems to be the most positive step made yet. The title of the series - Formula 1: Drive to Survive - sets the tone for much of the series. Plenty of screentime is given to high-speed crashes and dramatic moments from the 2018 season, including Marcus Ericsson's crash at Monza, the Red Bulls' collision in Azerbaijan and Nico Hulkenberg's flip in Abu Dhabi. It may seem a little overplayed to F1 fans, but for the casual viewer, incidents like these and the dangerous nature of the sport is part of its appeal. So to hook around this is perhaps expected. The series does an excellent job at highlighting many of the stories from up and down the paddock with plenty of behind-the-scenes access. Daniel Ricciardo's move away from Red Bull is set against the souring of relations between the team and Renault, resulting in some intriguing moments between Christian Horner and Cyril Abiteboul. The needle between them we saw at moments during press conferences last year is only given more exposure in this for us to enjoy in excruciatingly awkward detail. Red Bull gets a huge amount of screentime through the series. It's not until the fifth episode Red Bull isn't one of the teams in the spotlight, with the shift away from the team feeling slightly refreshing. Ricciardo stands out as the star from the series, given the perfect platform to display his humour and character. Particular highlights include a song about his scrotum - yes, really - and his last appearance in the series, which acts as the final line of the season. The other stand-out figure of the series? Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner. Steiner is a brutally honest figure when discussing Haas' fortunes, particularly when Romain Grosjean goes through his early-season struggles. Whereas most team bosses would have closed up or stuck to a very PR-savvy line when defending a driver, Steiner airs his thoughts, making clear in sweary terms that Grosjean's spate of crashes cannot go on. It's a really good into the world of running an F1 team both for newcomers and ardent followers of the sport. Red Bull and Haas do appear to get the lion's share of coverage across the 10 episodes. Renault and Force India - the latter getting two episodes of focus - appear quite a bit, while McLaren is also covered well during its summer of changes. But Toro Rosso, Sauber and Williams get very minimal coverage. Williams' appearance over the Monaco Grand Prix acts as more of a scene-setter for Lawrence Stroll's takeover of Force India that is covered in a later episode. Drivers such as Sergey Sirotkin, Brendon Hartley and Stoffel Vandoorne are hardly mentioned. The absence of Ferrari and Mercedes from the series has already drawn criticism, and while it would have been good to see some of the most famous names in F1 appear, it actually works nicely to have the focus placed elsewhere. The success of Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes is noted, so it's not like they're erased completely. It would be good to see what is possible for the planned 2019 series if both teams jump on-board with the project. The way in which the series is tied together deserves a huge amount of praise. Commentary cuts across the BBC, Sky and Channel 4 help to tell the story, as does the use of two journalists to explain some details in F1 that a newcomer to the sport may not otherwise understand. Everything is covered in a way that never feels like you are being talked down to, though - a key balance that has been struck very well indeed. There will be some inconsistencies the more pedantic fan (myself included in this) will pick out, such as Charles Leclerc's move to Ferrari being portrayed as something that was confirmed post-Singapore, when it was announced in the lead-up to the race. All in all, though, the series did an excellent job given the constraints of lacking the two biggest teams and drivers of showing what life in the paddock is like. The videography is beautiful, making it a real, real treat to watch as well. Can this be the magic bullet to get more people interested in F1? It certainly has the potential to be. Football clubs such as Sunderland and Manchester City saw surges in popularity following the success of the series on them in the past couple of years. If F1 can see a similar uptake in interest, this may yet go down as the most successful move yet from the sport's new management to expand its fanbase and attract a new raft of fans.<doc-sep>
The first series of Formula 1: Drive to Survive is launched worldwide on the streaming service on Friday. Originally only eight teams agreed to be fully involved, with Ferrari and Mercedes opting out when filming commenced at Barcelona pre-season testing last year. However, by the end of the season the Italian team had relented and did grant some access, allowing the Scuderia to be featured more later in the series. F1 is now in negotiation with all the teams over the second series. Despite it not yet being fully signed off, production company Box to Box made a head start by undertaking some filming at the Barcelona test, and its cameras will also be present in Australia. F1’s head of motorsport Ross Brawn believes that all teams will come to understand the value of being involved in such promotional activities. “I think this sport is able to grow, and it will grow quicker if all the teams are part of that process, there's no doubt,” he said. “I think the teams are starting to recognise that their involvement is not just on the track, there's an involvement in everywhere we can improve the sport. “Maybe not every team is reaching that conclusion at the same time, but they are all reaching that conclusion. I think we'll see another step forward in 2019." Speaking at a launch event for the series, at which he saw the first two episodes for the first time, Brawn stressed that fans wanted to know more about the people involved in the sport. “I think in a way what you've seen tonight is an indication of the way we're going," he said. "This is an example of the changes that are coming in F1. "The human side has always been fascinating and all of us have been involved in that side. “Certainly now I'm away from a team I've felt that that would be a fascinating story because there is so much emotion of the whole team – the individuals, the mechanics, the engineers, the family. "I know from my own family how much they suffer and how much pleasure they get on both sides. And you could see that in the film. “Since we've started this new era, one of the things that's come across very strongly from the fans is that they want to understand about the drivers, they want to understand what goes on. “There’s a fascination in why these guys are so special. What is it that makes them exceptional. I think in both those episodes we saw different aspects of F1. "I particularly liked the second one – the [Carlos] Sainz and [Fernando] Alonso chemistry that was there. Those are things that you just don't necessarily see or feel.” F1’s head of marketing Ellie Norman confirmed that the second series was still being discussed with the teams. “Conversations are happening at the moment with all of the teams with regards to filming of Season 2,” she said. “Box to Box were filming in Barcelona testing and they will be in Melbourne, and obviously we would love to have all teams involved and signed up. “We've just started the conversations with the teams, and that does take time. I think Netflix have real confidence in the first one, so they put the funding up for Box to Box to cover the filming from testing and within Melbourne as well. We haven't set a deadline.” Norman acknowledged that Lewis Hamilton’s busy schedule made it hard for him to commit to the project. “Part of it was taking the Netflix opportunity to all the teams, and we understand and appreciate that if they're looking at a schedule, and they've got other activities going on," she said. "I think particularly Mercedes have an awful lot going on with a driver who is into fashion, into music – it was just too much for them to take on at that time.” A TV cameraman at work Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images