F1’s Drive to Survive “won’t please everybody” but isn’t going anywhere

Producers of the Netflix hit Drive to Survive “aren’t planning for an end” to the series while it keeps delivering for Formula 1.

A week before the start of the new F1 campaign, the eighth season of the long-running breakout hit was released on Netflix, a shortened eight-episode series following the 2025 campaign – as ever produced by Box to Box Films.

The success of Netflix’s first foray into F1 is well-documented by now, with Season 7’s viewership of over 10 million leaving every other sports franchise in the dust.

Reviews of Season 8 have been mixed, with the show continuing to divide diehard F1 fans and the newcomers F1 and its makers are trying to lure into the sport. But as long as the show achieves the latter objective, its makers don’t see any reason to change their approach.

“You have to very early accept the fact you’re not going to please everybody,” said Tom Rogers, Box to Box’s director of post-production.

“The reality is that the core die-hard fans, inevitably, will have some grievances with some stuff that’s in there. But we’re not really targeting the people that are already passionate about Formula 1.

“This was always the sort of access point for new fans. We want to turn casual fans into avid fans, and non-fans into casual fans. And I think we’ve achieved that. As long as we keep that fresh take on the paddock, I think it will continue to be successful.

“It’s unusual for Netflix shows to get to a Season 8, and I think it speaks volumes about the popularity of the show, but also the sport.”

That doesn’t mean all of the criticism leveraged against the show from knowledgeable fans, ranging from editorial incongruences to pulling soundbites and images out of context to stir up drama, is simply brushed off.

“Is the show perfect? No,” Rogers admitted. “Have we made mistakes in the past? Absolutely. There was one last year with Max [Verstappen]. We had the wrong shot from the wrong cool-down room. It was a genuine error. As soon as it was pointed out to us, we fixed it.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Drive to Survive Season 8

Photo by: Netflix

“It becomes a big news story, but there’s no conspiracy. We’re not trying to sort of stitch people up. It is human error and we put more processes in place every year to try and mitigate that. We now have [markers] across all of our footage which says which grand prix it came from. So if it’s from the wrong grand prix, it’s very obvious because it says it on the screen when we’re editing. It’s in all of our interests to do as good a job as we possibly can.”

The success of Apple’s F1 movie is as another lever to bring new fans into the series in the key North American market. That runway for further growth means that as long F1 keeps delivering for Netflix and vice versa, a sunset for Drive to Survive doesn’t seem to be on the immediate horizon.

“We’re often asked: ‘Do we think it’s run its course? But as much as we’ve grown the American market, I would argue there’s still a long way to go in the American market,” Rogers said. “It feels like Formula 1 is continuing to go from strength to strength. Hopefully, Drive to Survive will continue alongside Formula 1 in that respect.

“We’re not planning for an end. Things naturally have a finite duration, but there’s nothing on the horizon that we know about. While it continues to make sense for Formula 1, for Netflix, for the teams; as I’ve said, the American market, I think we’ve scratched the surface. There’s enormous growth potential there.”

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– The Autosport.com Team