We too were caught-up with our own race with Formula 1!
Ok, ok, back in 2020 I shat all over Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 2, I recall calling it “anti-climactic, boring, chronologically confusing, and disappointing”. So much so, it made us hesitant to watch season 3 (it was the COVID impacted season), putting it off for almost a year. We didn’t get around to it until early 2022, and then we binge-watched season 4 which was released on March 11.
And what can I say about season 4? It felt like seasons 1-3 were simply a prelude and a long build-up for season 4! In S4 there wasn’t the need to spend entire episodes establishing the back-stories to teams, drivers, and Team Principals- as they’re all household names by now. Therefore, it was just a case of picking-up where we had left off from season 3, and S4 was all about the racing! Vroom vroom.
In the past I had admired how the Producers of the show were able to cover off an entire racing season through the storytelling of its drivers and teams. I was always struck by the interesting way they were able to progress through the racing calendar, through the personal stories of individuals without really focusing on who stood atop the podium at the end of races. Case in point, season 1 was able to be told entirely without the participation of its eventual Champions- Mercedes and Hamilton. And without their appearance, the entire show wasn’t any worse off due to their absence. However, by S2, this same form of storytelling was getting a bit old and overused, thus our lack of interest in S2.
But in S4, it was more about the racing, more about the greatest season of F1 to-date, and in my opinion it has solidified the sport in the global consciousness and has now made it one of the largest global sports! And here is my example of this…….
What can I say, my wife is your typical female, has a passing interest in sports, and only follows sports if it’s the Australian Tennis Open, and if it is the Summer and Winter Olympic games, and I think that is pretty much it? But since watching Formula 1: Drive to Survive, she knows all the drivers, all the Team Principals, and when I suggested to her to watch Season 4 (although we had just recently completed S3) she was more than happy to do so.
And what were the signs to exhibit that she was interested and bought into F1? Her questions to me, when we were only a few episodes into the new season she asked me “so who wins the Championship this year?” “How did Ricciardo manage to win a race” “and How does DRS work?” So, she’s come a long way from the person who only perked up in S1 when she found out that Ginger Spice was married to Christian Horner.
And our own race with F1 occurred, when we realised that we had 4 more episodes to go, when the start of the new 2022 F1 race season was on that weekend. Nooo! Of course, we had to attempt to close the F1 chapter on season 2021, before the new racing season started! But alas, we just didn’t have enough hours in front of the telly to binge the remaining eps, but that’s all good, it just meant that we were listening to summaries of the Bahrain GP, before my wife was able to watch how the final race of 2021 unfolded in dramatic fashion!
And are we surprised to learn that crowd numbers are up at races, if the Bahrain GP Friday free practice session is an indicator of what’s to come? And why these new young drivers are recognised everywhere they go?
And the most telling thing for me is this, when I asked my wife if she’d would ever consider going to a Formula 1 race in person, her answer was “Yeah, probably”. And when I suggested to her if we could watch the television broadcast of the Australian GP together on April 10, her actual answer was yes! Can you believe that? It was a yes!?
Hats off to you, the Executives at Liberty Media, for opening the doors of Formula 1 to Netflix, so in turn it has opened the sport up to a whole new global audience! You’ve helped me establish a new mutule interest between my wife and I! Which I’m entirely grateful for. Thanks!
For those who haven’t watched Season 4 of Formula 1: Drive to Survive (my opinion, the best season yet!), just click HERE! Let’s go racing baby!
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