Why the fuck should you watch: “Formula 1: Drive to Survive”? (Season 1)
• You get aroused when you hear the noise of the formula 1 car.
• You went karting once and now you think that you can be a formula 1 driver.
• You like to eat chips and see drama unfolding.
• You want to see the ruthless back stage life of formula 1.
• You like Kimi Räikkönen or Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel. You’ll see green unicorns eating carrots in your back yard more often than you’ll see these drivers in Drive to Survive.
Netflix has produced a series about 2018 season of Formula 1. It takes the focus away from racing itself and shows the people behind the screens, behind the visors and how everything we take as entertainment is brutal reality and life or death matter to someone else. There are only 20 current formula 1 drivers in the whole world. So as you can guess, it’s very difficult to get into F1 and it’s even more difficult to keep your seat. Even the hugely talented quick guys can lose their seats like they never had them. Like it is said in the series: In F1 the highs are very high and the lows are very low. And by “high” I don’t mean anything regarding consuming substances.
This series picks certain stories that unfolded during the 2018 season. For example: a fierce fight between Renault and an American Haas F1 team. An intra-team fight between the drivers of Redbull F1 team that climaxed with a massive crash. You’ll see what it takes from a Formula 1 driver to mentally endure and overcome the downward spiral when making mistakes and fucking up. The series shows the dynamics between different teams and the massive politics that go with it. It also gives us commentaries by the drivers, team bosses and the close ones of the drivers. All the stories are presented in a way that you don’t need prior knowledge of F1 and therefore they are easy to follow from start to finish.
If you already like F1, there's not much more I can say – probably you have already seen it. If you are not a fan of F1, it’s a good way to get yourself hooked and see why it’s so popular and addicting. It’s not just driving around in circles, there are real human beings driving the fastest racing cars while being off the pace with half of the second of your teammate is being considered as useless and slow like a sloth in a cheetahs’ world.
“Formula 1: Drive to Survive” doesn’t tell the story about two front-running teams Mercedes and Ferrari because those teams declined Netflix to have an access to their behind the scenes and were a little pussies about it. But hey, we got a lot of coverage and information of them anyways during races. It’s not a politically correct series like the people in F1 have to be when giving interviews and so on. There are a lot of swearing, many fucks were handed out, a lot of real adrenaline driven emotions, and classic quotes like „Suck my balls, mate“ (From the viking Magnussen to a prettyboy Hulkenberg).
If you like drama, human relationships, real emotions and overcoming fuckups presented in a motorsport frame, and seeing Fernando Alonso switching into two wheel racing, then it’s a must watch. Formula 1 is like playing chess while going 300 km/h.
Why the fuck you shouldn’t watch: “Formula 1: Drive to Survive”?
• The best day of your life was isolating yourself into a quiet aroma sauna doing yoga.
• You get easily offended and then, every time that happens, you run home being all sad and bitter for a year.
• Your motivation to become a F1 driver is based on the thought that all you have to do as a driver is to sit in the car and press throttle, and the massive money, wins and not gold digger women start to come right away. That illusion will be broken for sure.
• When you see people spending hundreds of millions of dollars just to drive around circles a little bit faster, you start vomiting, because it’s such a waste. They could solve the world hunger with that money.
