Drive To Survive a huge success

ROME • Last year's heated title fight between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen drew the focus of the fourth season of Drive To Survive, the Netflix series about Formula One, which was released last month.

The streaming series has been a hit for the sport, attracting droves of new fans by highlighting the personalities of the drivers inside the cockpit.

Last month, over four million viewers caught its opening weekend, according to Netflix audience data.

But those watching it to get the inside story on the championship battle noticed a significant absence.

World champion Verstappen was the only driver to refuse to be interviewed for the series because he thought it faked rivalries and exaggerated incidents.

"I'm quite a down-to-earth guy, and I just want it to be facts, don't hype it up," the Red Bull driver said. "I understand of course it needs to be like that for Netflix. It's just not my thing."

While Verstappen still appeared in the series through use of F1 footage, the story of his title fight was largely told through interviews with Christian Horner, Red Bull's team principal.

Mercedes rival Hamilton took an active part in the series, engaging in interviews throughout his battle with Verstappen. Driver rivalries are central to the narrative of the show.

One example came last season in an episode featuring McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz Jr. While they are known to be good friends who worked well together in the team, the episode sought to depict tension in their relationship that Sainz felt was "pushed a bit too far".

Verstappen has been direct about how Norris was portrayed, arguing it made it look like the Briton was a bit of a jerk.

F1 has spoken with the producers of the show and the teams after Verstappen's complaints.

Ian Holmes, the director of media rights at F1, disagreed that the series had faked rivalries, saying: "This notion that some things are made up, it's just chatter. At the end of the day, it is authentic."

The balance between authenticity and dramatising events to appeal to a viewing audience is a challenge that documentary series often face.

But Horner, whose rivalry with his Mercedes counterpart, Toto Wolff, featured heavily in Season 4 with insults and personality clashes, felt the purpose of Drive To Survive had to be kept in mind.

"At the end of the day, it is a television show," he said. "They're taking snippets from a season-long battle and turning that into a television programme... it is designed ultimately to entertain."

And it has been entertaining, with record crowds attending races in the United States and Australia in the past six months.

"We're happy to report, and I think our Netflix friends would be happy to report, that it was the No. 1 show in 33 countries around the world already," said Greg Maffei, chief executive of Liberty Media, which owns F1, who called it "a huge success".

McLaren chief executive Zak Brown added: "I can't go through an airport now without being recognised, and it's all because of Netflix."

NYTIMES