BEN EDWARDS @benedwardstv
PEOPLE POWER: THE SECRET OF NETFLIX’S SUCCESS
As interest in a new F1 season ramps up, it’s the perfect time to go behind the scenes to last year’s record-breaking championship. Season 6 of Drive To Survive is ‘dropping’ on Netflix thanks to production company Box to Box Films and its team of producers, editors and experts. Many of those involved have learned about F1 by working on the series but co-executive producer Tom Rogers, who was engaged from the beginning in 2017, carries his own faithful memories of camping at Silverstone as a kid and developing his passion many years ago.
Success of the series has led to a growing fanbase around the world, yet there were some tricky aspects when filming began – including two of the top teams declining access, as Tom explains: “The reality of a show like this is that it requires an enormous leap of faith for everyone involved, especially being a sport like F1 with its history; it’s naturally a very secretive world. There’s so much competitive advantage that could be gained by just seeing a little bit of a car that’s normally hidden. At that point Mercedes and Ferrari probably had most to lose by taking part and some of the other teams saw more of an upside and less of a risk.”
Haas was happy and allowed full access at the first race in Australia in 2018. The team was on target to score 22 points, but cross-threaded wheelnuts during pitstops led to both cars retiring.
“The wheels literally fell off both cars,” Tom remembers, “and as soon as that happened, we thought, ‘OK, we might have an episode one.’ That was it, the train was off and hasn’t stopped since.”
That drama, plus many others, were absorbed a year later as the first series was broadcast and delivered a unique insight. The previously cautious top teams soon joined in, although selecting a particular event to allow filming doesn’t always go to plan as Mercedes quickly discovered.
“We agreed that we would film one race only,” Tom confirms, “and the understanding was that we would fully embed. We would tell the story of that race weekend, which happened to be the German GP, when they dressed up in period costumes, and had probably the worst GP they’d had since returning to F1.”
Both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas crashed into barriers in wet conditions and, even though Lewis was able to r
