Drive to Survive Season 7: A story that couldn’t stay in its lane
On March 7th, 2025, the seventh season of Netflix’s docuseries Drive to Survive was released, and I, a die-hard Formula 1 fan, have many thoughts. The idea for the series was born in 2017, when Liberty Media bought F1 and was looking to grow the sport’s audience. The intent was to show the raw, human-side of the sport and place a lens on the 20 athletes putting their skills to the test. However, over the past few years Netflix has been criticized for doing the opposite: over-dramatizing and misrepresenting races and drivers’ relationships to tell a more engaging or “dramatic” story. While I understand that all television series need to be engaging, contain drama, and draw the viewer in, as someone who avidly watches F1 throughout the year, I can guarantee that the pre-existing, non-embellished, narratives are more than riveting. If Season 7 of Drive to Survive is anything, it’s furthering the overdramatized narrative critiques uphold about the series. I also found it to be misleading at times, giving viewers who might be introduced into the sport for the first time through this show an inaccurate perception of events.
Episode 1: Business as Usual
Drive to Survive Season 7, which chronicles the 2024 race season, kicks off its story arc by bringing in a headline from before the season even started: Lewis Hamilton, the golden boy of Mercedes, makes the unprecedented decision to move to Ferrari. Netflix’s description of the episode makes the incredibly bold claim that this “is almost overshadowed by a shocking allegation,” in reference to accusations of coercive, abusive behavior, and sexual harassment on the part of Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Team Principle, Christian Horner. This is incredibly misleading. Hamilton raced with Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team for 12 seasons, winning six of his seven World Drivers Championships with the team. Tied with Michael Schumacher as the most decorated F1 driver of all time, Hamilton is effectively re-writing his legacy and altering the entire future of his career by signing with Ferrari. So no, in my opinion, that story is not at all correlated, or at risk of being overshadowed by allegations of workplace misconduct by Horner. The intention of the docu-series is to show the human-side of the drivers—athletes pushing themselves to the absolute limits, driving at speeds of up to 233 miles per hour while withstanding incredible G forces. By shining a light on the impact that Hamilton has created at Mercedes, and maybe giving behind the scenes insight into why Hamilton decided to switch teams, Drive to Survive could have produced a much more compelling and raw opening to the season. Alternatively, ending the season by reflecting on Hamilton’s legacy, and how that will affect the future of the sport, could have been a more interesting route if they were adamant on telling Horner’s story as the opening. I just firmly don’t understand what Horner, the director of a different team, has to do with Hamilton, and why the two were conflated in one episode. The amount of different things going on overwhelmed me a little bit as a viewer. Coming off of waiting a year after the release of Drive to Survive season 6, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed at how jumbled the first 48 minutes of the series were.
Episode 2: Frenemies
Frenemies” stopped short of the metaphorical finish line in a plethora of ways that I believe to underscore the broader issue that I have with how Netflix went about creating season 7. The episode description is as follows: “Lando Norris has spent his career coming second to Max Verstappen. Can this be the year he overtakes his friend and makes a bid for the championship?” Firstly—no, Norris has not spent his entire career coming second to Verstappen. The most important part of any F1 race is the car. If a driver is racing with a car that doesn’t have the same capabilities of its rivals, they simply will not perform. McLaren, the team that Norris races for, has been underperforming for the past few years. In 2023, McLaren finished 4th in the World Constructors Championship, whereas Red Bull placed 1st, winning all but 1 race. Although Norris achieved many second place finishes throughout the ‘23 season, no team had the technical capabilities to rival Red Bull, and by proxy, Verstappen. For viewers who may be watching Drive to Survive season 7 as their first impression into the sport, this important context is left out of the story they’re consuming. In fact, later in the series in episode 9 “Under New Management,” the fact that Alpine’s car entered the 2024 season being 10-11 kilograms overweight, causing them to be around half a second slower than the benchmark time, isn’t even alluded to when evaluating Alpine’s issues throughout the season. Formula 1 is as dependent on the drivers as it is the cars, and in my opinion, Netflix is not contextualizing the technical aspect of the sport enough for non-familiar viewers to walk away with an accurate perception of the results of different drivers. In terms of the Norris-Verstappen rivalry “Frenemies” sets up, though, I believe that the drivers’ relationship was over-dramatized to prove a non-existent point that ends up being addressed later in the series. Episode 10, the final episode, is called “End Game,” and tells the story of Verstappen dominating the Sao Paulo Grand Prix to secure his world championship and relegate Norris to second place. Why couldn’t the conflict between the two have been condensed into one episode? I understand that the rivalry between the two drivers really begins in Miami (which chronologically begins in episode 2) where Norris wins for the first time over Verstappen due to a set of upgrades McLaren equipped onto their car to increase its competitive advantage. Yet, the season jumps around in terms of chronology—episode 4 “Carlos Signs” follows up on the narrative introduced in episode 1—so why not approach season 7 as 10 individual episodes telling their own arc across the 2024 F1 season instead of picking and choosing narratives throughout? In my opinion, showing raw triumph, passion, victory, failure, perseverance—all human aspects of the sport that enrapture audience members—in a cut-and-choose way that Netflix produced for season 7 makes the show seem more forced and less authentic. The clip after Norris’ first win in Miami of Verstappen looking angry is taken from a different race, misleading the audience into what Verstappen was actually feeling at that time. Anybody who watched the Miami GP in real time saw on the live broadcast images of Verstappen happily congratulating his rival, the true narrative Netflix chose to omit.
Episode 4: Le Curse of Leclerc
To take a break from critiquing and give credit where it’s due, I wholeheartedly loved this episode. It told the story of the Monaco Grand Prix—the most iconic race on the F1 calendar—from start to finish, and didn’t leave audience members confused about what the story was trying to achieve. I’m not the biggest fan of Charles Leclerc, but this episode was truly beautiful and made me emotional at times. Leclerc, who is from Monaco, has raced in F1 for seven years, won eight races, yet never won his home race before 2024. Some called this the “Monaco curse”: Leclerc has come oh so close to victory at this race so many times, but somehow, through no fault of his own, has always fallen short (strategy failure causing him to lose critical positions, damage to the car, etc.). That all changed in 2024, when he secured pole position allowing him to start the race from first place, and drove a dominant race start to finish. “Le Curse of Leclerc” tells this exact story, with personal never-before-seen insights from Charles himself, that make viewers walk away feeling inspired. Formula 1 is a brutal sport: you can win one day and then crash the next. But triumphant moments of success, like that Leclerc felt in Monaco, remind not only the drivers but audience members why everything is worth it, and I believe that Netflix depicted the highs of motorsport in this instance truly beautifully, and should have used this as a reference for how to direct the other episodes of the series.
Episode 7: In The Heat of The Night
“In The Heat of The Night” takes the cake as my favorite episode of season 7. Five drivers—Lando Norris, George Russell, Alex Albon, Charles Leclerc, and Pierre Gasly—are all given phones and asked to record their weekends at the Singapore Grand Prix. Filming light-hearted antics, candid moments, and general shenanigans, “In The Heat of The Night” delivers the episode that perhaps feels the most authentic. The approach Netflix took with episode 7, in my opinion, is the approach that should have been taken with the entire season—have the drivers show what they want shown, and then insert professionally shot moments that are contextually relevant throughout to tell the actual story of the drivers. Perfect, no notes.
Episode 8: Elbows Out
I’m back to critiquing, sorry! I know that everything I’ve said before can be quickly overshadowed by the fact that this is, in essence, a drama series, and Netflix does, in fact, want to show drama. Even if that means being misleading or creating narratives that aren’t one hundred percent accurate, everything is done with the intention of keeping audience members engaged. Yet I believe that this could have been done in a way similar to Episode 7, and I think “Elbows Out” is the perfect example of a storyline within Season 7 having all the components of something compelling yet just not quite crossing the finish line. “After a record-breaking 2023, Red Bull has a lot to live up to. With one driver slowing the team down, veterans and newcomers alike battle for his seat.” The episode’s description references Checo Perez, the second driver for Red Bull who was underperforming in 2024. His seat is under threat from Red Bull junior team’s two drivers Yuki Tsunoda, who has been with the team since 2021, and eight-time grand prix winner Daniel Ricciardo, who used to drive for Red Bull but after taking a brief break from the sport, re-joined. Ricciardo is one of the most beloved drivers on track, and one of the most popular drivers interviewed for Drive to Survive’s earlier seasons. He was axed by Visa Cash App RB (VCARB), the junior team, half way through the 2024 season to make way for a younger and faster driver, Liam Lawson. Later, Lawson ended up beating his more experienced team mate Tsunoda for the promotion to take Perez’s seat for the upcoming 2025 season. This arc opens up so many doors for Netflix to show the human side of racing. The hard-times, the disappointments, the failures, everything Ricciardo grapples with is the perfect emotional conflict a reality/sports docuseries would benefit from. Yet, “Elbows Out” tells the audience none of the disrespect Ricciardo faced upon his exit from the sport. VCARB fired him after the Singapore Grand Prix, where he finished his career on a high note, scoring the fastest lap of the race. As someone who watched the race in real time, theories ran rampant on X regarding whether or not that was his last race following rumors swirling from news sources. Ultimately, Ricciardo, beloved by many and incredibly talented, received no send-off from Red Bull—a slap in the face that I think should have made the final cut of the docuseries. Lawson receiving the promotion over Tsunoda, as well, was an incredibly divisive choice. Overall, “Elbows Out” was an okay episode, I just left knowing there were so many better places it could have been taken, that would have been equally dramatic and engaging for viewers.
As I mentioned, I live and breathe Formula 1, and waiting with baited breath for the annual release of Drive to Survive before the first race of the season is almost a tradition at this point. However, this season simply did not deliver. The episodes felt incredibly disjointed, the storylines chosen didn’t make sense at times—it was a little bit disappointing to see how nearly half of the drivers didn’t even get acknowledged. However, the 2024 F1 season consisted of 24 races—a record amount, so I can only imagine the amount of raw footage Netflix had to sift through to create compelling narratives. Yet, I almost wonder that perhaps if they had restructured the way the season was told, it might have been more compelling. There are 10 episodes, and there are 10 teams competing in the sport. Why not have one episode depicting the most important story of that team throughout the season? I also know that not all teams agree to be filmed, so there would have been extra space to highlight even more moving stories, making their job almost easier. Television shows, specifically docuseries, are designed to evoke emotion within their viewers. The highs, the lows, the persistence within sports are all incredibly moving. As an F1 fan, my weekends have been ruined due to a crash from my favorite driver, or made because someone I was rooting for won. From Leclerc’s unprecedented win in Monaco to Norris’s heartbreaking Sao Paulo grand prix, the story line is clearly already there, Netflix simply decided to over embellish and provide fans with an overall disappointing season. Oh well, I guess we’ll try again next year.
