Williams team principal James Vowles has explained how his attempts to sign Carlos Sainz Jnr last year differed from its portrayal in Drive to Survive.
Vowles’ efforts to court Sainz are highlighted in the fourth episode of the latest season, which premiered earlier this month.
The episode shows Vowles vying for Sainz’s signature alongside competing bids from Sauber and Alpine. The process lasted several months: Vowles first approached Sainz at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in December 2023, it became public knowledge the driver would leave Ferrari in February last year and Williams announced he had signed for them the following July.
One scene in the middle of the episode shows an anxious Vowles waiting as Sainz fails to appear on time to sign his contract. However the Williams team principal said he was always in close communication with his future driver.
Rival team bosses like Flavio Briatore courted Sainz
“All the way through – unlike what’s been portrayed, actually – Carlos and I were speaking daily or certainly every few days,” he told the official F1 channel. “There was never a break in communication.”
Although the likes of Alpine’s Flavio Briatore did make approaches to Sainz, Vowles said the driver never failed to keep him informed about the situation. “He was honest and transparent, as I was, all the way through on what his feelings and thoughts were,” said Vowles.
“That’s what’s made it, effectively, I think, a strong relationship, because that transparency from me showed him: ‘here’s our weaknesses, our strengths, here’s what’s happening’. When you do that across three weeks, four weeks, you can hide certain things. [But if] you do that across six months, which is what we were talking for, you can’t hide anything.
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Review: Play or skip? RaceFans’ verdict on every episode of Drive to Survive season seven
“[It was] the same from him. I saw the real Carlos underneath all of it, and that was important to me. I can see what his weakness is and his strengths were, and it’s why I could determine it really would work for all parties.”
Vowles said it had been a risky decision to allow the Drive to Survive producers to film their discussions and he was pleased with the depiction of them in the series.
“I think Netflix did a really good job,” he said. “It was even more twists and turns than you saw there.
“They captured a little bit of it, because we let them into our life. A big risk on our behalf, because at certain points, we could have looked like fools. But actually, capturing the emotion you go through when you’re going in this roller coaster, I think it’s a good thing for the sport to understand what really happens underneath. But there were more twists and turns than that.”
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The new season of Netflix’s hit Formula 1 series Drive to Survive has prompted fresh accusations of inaccuracy but its producer insists they strive to be authentic.
Lando Norris described parts of one seventh-season episode as “incorrect” and “almost lying” last weekend. Other drivers previously raised concerns about the liberties they believe Drive to Survive has taken with the truth.
The programme makers use their exclusive access to teams in the paddock to offer a behind-the-scenes look at F1. The series’ executive producer James Gay-Rees insists they always strive to present viewers with a realistic version of events within the constraints of their 40-minute episodes.
“You have to get the essence of what you’re trying to get across,” he told The National. “It becomes an interpretation of what happened, but our ambition is always to tell an authentic story.”
Since its debut in 2019, Drive to Survive has made unlikely stars out of some of the paddock’s less well-known figures, particularly the team principals. Gay-Rees described it as “an extremely bitchy world.”
“That’s why it’s such a great place to make a show. There are heroes and villains. People are out to win at any price and will do whatever it takes.
“It’s a very fertile precinct in which to make a series because it’s so contained. The characters don’t change. It’s dangerous and political and scandalous and gossipy. Those are the key ingredients.”
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However the series has been dogged by allegations of inaccuracy since its first season. Max Verstappen was so unhappy with his depiction that he refused to co-operate with the series’ producers on some later seasons. He has since returned, but seldom figures prominently in it, and has his own content deal with broadcaster Viaplay. Other drivers have also objected to how Drive to Survive portrayed them.
The series has been credited for contributing to F1’s rising popularity in recent years. Gay-Rees said F1 was previously “being described, somewhat unfairly, as being a bit male, pale and stale.”
“It just wasn’t very cool,” he said. “It had been in the past, but it wasn’t going through one of its more sexy cycles, for want of a better expression.”
Female viewers are a significant part of F1’s new audience, which Gay-Rees says is no surprise to him. “You’ve got sexy young men driving sports cars and risking their lives. I mean, it’s a pretty basic sort of equation for success. My 18-year-old daughter didn’t even know how to spell ‘Formula 1’ two years ago. Now she’s obsessed. It’s brilliant.”
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Season seven of Formula 1’s hit Netflix series Drive to Survive is available to watch from Friday.
After a largely one-sided 2023 season, the programme makers had a lot more to work with last year. Which storylines did they cover, and how successful were they?
After watching all 10 episodes, here’s RaceFans’ verdict on which ones you should see – and which you can skip without missing anything.
Business As Usual
Verdict: Skip
Drive to Survive season seven leans on contrived exposition scenes like a drunk on a lamppost. The device pops up over and over, beginning with the conflab between the Horners which sets up the season-opener. Although this episode can’t resist a nod towards the other big story of the 2023-24 off-season – Lewis Hamilton signing for Ferrari – it centres on the allegations against Horner which were front page news 12 months ago.
As the various investigations meant Horner couldn’t speak on the subject, and the contents of the notorious Bahrain Grand Prix email leak are obviously not going to be shown, it makes for a thin episode. It ends by giving the impression the matter has been resolved, yet it remains to be seen whether this is in fact the case. Linking Max Verstappen’s retirement from the Australian Grand Prix to all this is tenuous even by DTS standards.
Frenemies
Verdict: Play
Verstappen may have resume co-operation with Netflix two years ago, but as he has a deal of his own with ViaPlay, we see much more of Lando Norris in this first of three episodes which focuses on last year’s championship fights.
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Norris is such a willing subject that there’s much more to get into here, including some excellent retro footage and the aftermath of his breakthrough win in Miami. Horner’s assessment of Norris’s mental state heading into one race is particularly brutal.
Looking Out For Number 1
Verdict: Skip
There’s no escape from the dreaded exposition scenes, which are so over-used in this episode it feels like a particularly wooden soap opera. George Russell appears in these with the natural ease of a hostage being prodded before the cameras.
Interesting to note, though, that although Mercedes have tried to play down expectations of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, here team principal Toto Wolff is already comparing him to Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and – yes – Max Verstappen.
Carlos Signs
Verdict: Play
Series favourite Ricciardo bids farewell
The three-way jockeying for the services of Carlos Sainz Jnr between Williams’ James Vowles, Sauber’s Alessandro Alunni Bravi and Alpine’s Flavio Briatore is ripe for DTS treatment. Sure enough, this is one of the better-handled episodes, with plenty of paddock intrigue to enjoy.
Also, bonus point for the witty title.
Le Curse Of Leclerc
Verdict: Skip
No points for that title, or the rest of the episode, which is a waste of time for anyone who knows a little about Formula 1. Last year’s Monaco Grand Prix was such a soporific affair the series has rushed in a knee-jerk rule change for this race only to prevent it happening again. So why devote a whole episode to it?
The answer is to wring the ‘Charles Leclerc finally wins home race after years of misfortune’ angle for all it’s worth. But the hysterical commentary on top of a race where the drivers were stroking their cars home for 77 laps is just comical.
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Wheels Of Fortune
Verdict: Play
More McLaren versus Red Bull rivalry. As has become familiar from past seasons of DTS, the verbal barbs are seldom delivered by the drivers, more often by their team bosses, above all Horner, who only seems to open his mouth to take a pop at his McLaren counterpart in this episode.
Here we get plenty of McLaren tying themselves in knots over whether and how to impose a running order on their drivers. The story comes across well on the whole, though the implication Norris’s Q1 elimination was his fault rather than poor luck isn’t accurate or fair.
The cut from McLaren CEO Zak Brown watching footage of his teenage self on quiz show Wheel of Fortune to McLaren’s distinctive wheel covers is a neat touch, though.
In The Heat Of The Night
Verdict: Play
The drivers call the shots in episode seven
A welcome change of direction here, as the filmmakers gave five drivers phones to capture their own video during the Singapore Grand Prix. It makes for one of the best episode of the series, particularly as it gets away from some of the more well-trodden storylines.
Elbows Out
Verdict: Play
“The Netflix story is not working,” is the pithy observation from Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko which captures this episode. Series favourite Daniel Ricciardo does not get to fulfil the redemption arc he was set up for, losing his seat to Liam Lawson, who then puts Sergio Perez’s nose out of joint by humiliating him in front of his home crowd, then taking his seat.
Again, there are some obviously acted scenes, and it doesn’t shed much light on Red Bull’s decision-making, not least its lack of interest in Yuki Tsunoda. But there are some amusing paddock moments and a particularly revealing interview with Ricciardo which is not to be missed.
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Under New Management
Verdict: Skip
A snarling Briatore trashes Esteban Ocon as a “spoiled brat”, insists he’s lost all motivation and lays the ground for a sacking. Ocon’s strong drive to second in Brazil fits neither Briatore’s narrative not Netflix’s, and he is duly shown the door one race early. The driver deserve credit for his composure in not rising to the bait.
A rivalry between Ocon and his replacement, reserve driver Jack Doohan, is confected, notwithstanding the fact Ocon’s departure from the team was announced as early as June. At least Claire Williams is on hand to spell out the obvious point the episode otherwise tries to avoid: “Briatore just wanted him gone from the team.”
End Game
Verdict: Skip
Drive to Survive’s finales tend to suffer from the difficulty of bringing anything new to the championship storyline, not to mention the consistently poor racing at Yas Marina. The final episode is not without its moments, however, notably Briatore’s comments to Pierre Gasly and Juan Pablo Montoya’s remarkably prescient observation about Verstappen.
The episode concludes with Wolff narrating an for a messaging service, dressed up as a farewell to the Ferrari-bound Hamilton, which many will have heard when it did the rounds on social media three months ago. For all the series’ behind-the-scenes insights, ending on something so dated was an odd choice.
Over to you
Have you watched any of the new series of Drive to Survive? Share your views on season seven in the comments.
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