Drive To Survive returned to Netflix this week, with the sixth season of the popular behind-the-scenes documentary series getting released to the world. Fresh from it hitting fans’ screens, we spoke with Executive Producer James Gay-Rees about how the latest instalment came together, the “brutal” editing process behind it and what the future for the series holds…
As usual, the new season of Drive To Survive covers the previous year’s tour around the world, in this case a campaign that Max Verstappen and Red Bull dominated – the Dutch driver winning a whopping 19 out of 22 races and the Milton Keynes team incredibly winning all bar one event.
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You could be forgiven for thinking this might have had a negative impact on the show’s end product, but Gay-Rees points out that, while appreciating the world champions’ efforts, there were plenty of other intriguing stories and sub-plots to track as the campaign wore on.
Indeed, it got to the stage that the Box to Box production team – which Gay-Rees and fellow Executive Producer Paul Martin oversee – were considering whether to go beyond the usual structure of 10 episodes used from seasons one to five.
“Obviously you’re not talking about a season where there’s a massive title rivalry, so really it’s interesting watching the fight for second, third, fourth taking place,” says Gay-Rees as he sits down for a conversation with Formula1.com.
“It’s really good for some of the drivers in those teams, like Oscar Piastri, Pierre Gasly, having really, really substantial stories this year. Daniel Ricciardo coming back to F1 was fantastic and a massive bonus for the series.
“The style of story-telling hasn’t radically changed, but it’s a really strong season. We went into it slightly worried that because Red Bull were so dominant it might be a little bit skinny, but actually it’s not. We even nearly did more episodes than we normally do because we had quite a lot of stories to tell.
QUIZ: Drive to Survive Special – Test your knowledge of the must-see Netflix show
“It’s really good to shine a light on those other teams. Mercedes have a tricky year that they turn around, Aston Martin start big and then fall away, so there were some interesting and surprising shakes in it, even if the headline was pretty written early, if you know what I mean.”
Bringing Verstappen back into the equation, Gay-Rees continues: “I get for the casual viewer that it may get a bit repetitive with Max winning every weekend, but I do think, in hindsight, people are going to understand what an amazing driver he is.
“That car is not easy to drive, as far as my F1 sources tell me. Checo [Sergio Perez] is a brilliant driver but he can’t drive it quite as well as Max can. Max can drive it no matter how difficult the car is, and that’s the brilliance of Max, which is kind of fascinating
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