Netflix's Drive to Survive season 4 can only disappoint against reality

Netflix is no stranger to top-tier factual programming. The very best Netflix documentaries pluck the most fascinating of unknown stories from obscurity, heightening their emotional impact with talking heads, simulated role-play and an animation or two for audiences to enjoy in comfort and disbelief.

The latest season Formula 1: Drive to Survive, though – which began streaming on Netflix this weekend – has the particularly tricky task of dramatizing the events of a sporting season that defied even the imagination of the show’s usual scriptwriters. 

No amount of ominous narration or slow-motion camerawork could ever do justice to the jaw-dropping spectacle that unfolded during the final lap of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, a moment of pure ecstasy for Max Verstappen fans and heartbreak for those supporting Lewis Hamilton.

Having watched the first episode of Drive to Survive season 4, it’s clear the series still employs all the familiar tricks to help its audience relive those fist-clenching moments. It's still one of the best Netflix shows, don't get me wrong.

But it’s also clear that it will fail to conjure the same feeling of awe that reality presented us with in 2021 - a pleasant reminder that sport is at its best when the unthinkable unfolds before our eyes. 

That’s not to say the interviews and forensic reliving of the entire year won’t entertain… but the finale in Abu Dhabi still exalts and hurts fans in equal measure, and no documentary can top that.

In the past, criticism has been levelled at the docuseries for its tendency to exaggerate action on and off the race track. Supposedly fictional rivalries, dirty politics and backstage bust-ups have become a feature of a show that has been credited with revitalizing interest in a traditionally inaccessible sport. 

In some cases, that criticism holds water – in season 3, for instance, on-screen tensions between McLaren teammates Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz were later rubbished by the drivers themselves.

It figures, then, that some have claimed – in a racing season which saw title challenger Verstappen dethrone  Hamilton in exceptionally controversial fashion – that the sport itself now plays second fiddle to the Netflix series it inspires (an allegation the show’s producers have fiercely denied). 

Could race organizers really be sacrificing the integrity of Formula 1 for the sake of TV drama? Few know the real answer, but this writer remains sceptical. 

In truth, the best moments in Drive to Survive’s four seasons have come from the little guys – from the stories swallowed up by the greater championship narrative in any given year. 

How many times do we see or hear from Guenther Steiner on a Grand Prix weekend? Rarely. But the Haas team principal is indisputably the best personality to emerge from this supposedly fly-on-the-wall series, and so it’s true again with season 4.