‘Driver’ to Survive? Formula E’s documentary offers plenty and deserves another season

The boom in Formula 1’s popularity in recent years is so often credited to the Netflix series ‘Drive to Survive’, that its success spawned several other attempts to capture the inner workings of a sporting championship.

Few have succeeded, and fewer still if you look at the other motorsports series out there but, in its Amazon Prime-released ‘Driver’, Formula E has managed to capture some of the same sparkle on a smaller scale.

“You don’t want to know!” Mitch Evans answers early on in the 49-minute opening episode of Formula E’s docuseries ‘Driver’ when asked what goes through the mind of a racer.

Er. We do, Mitch. It is kind of the point of the show and why we are watching it in the first place!

Having previously dropped episodes of its documentary ‘Unplugged’ on YouTube, Formula E has landed its latest effort to attract new fans to the series on the streaming juggernaut that is Amazon Prime Video.

The four-part series was released on 2 May and one thing production company Astronaut Films has managed to avoid is creating something of a Drive to Survive Lite. Instead, the series tells its own story while also borrowing some of the tropes that made the F1 equivalent such a roaring success for both the championship and for Netflix.

‘Driver’ instantly taps into nostalgia as we see old video footage of Evans, Jake Dennis and Antonio Felix da Costa – the three racers who are the focus of the first episode – and, true to form for these docuseries, it does not take long to see a driver spending time at home with his dogs.

The talking heads are brought in to explain the series and sometimes boil it down to such bland terms it is akin to soggy vegetables – not something unique to ‘Driver,’ it should be made clear. Here, the experts are the broadcast trio of Nicki Shields, Radzi Chinyanganya and Karun Chandhok, while journalist interviews and podcast audio is also laid over the top of the action to slightly take the professional sheen off the production.

“You need to be a little bit of a bastard to be the best,” is one of the first lines we hear from 2019-20 champion da Costa, showing that this series also has some grit, rather than being a glossy tip of the iceberg when it comes to getting behind the visor of Formula E’s top talent.

The first act of episode one, though, belongs to Dennis as we get a quick summary of his season nine championship win, leading into how he enjoyed the off-season celebrating with his partner Lexi Boosey and his plot to retain the title.

It is fair to say that the outspoken Dan Ticktum is the star of episode two, but with around only four hours in total, the storytelling of a closely fought championship battle feels truncated at times, with tales not given time to develop as they would on a show with more episodes.

But it also means the pace does not drop and viewers who are not new to Formula E are unlikely to get bogged down by the basic explainers littered throughout something like ‘Drive to Survive.’

‘Driver’ is a solid effort from Formula E to show off its series to a wider audience and continue its attempts to attract new fans to the championship. Another series certainly would not go amiss.