© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
One of the executive producers of Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’ answers Toto Wolff’s comments that the series ‘spins’ the F1 narrative and gives his comments on the controversial ending of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The fourth season of Netflix’s Formula 1 docuseries ‘Drive to Survive’ has been released today. Although the series brought in a new audience for the sport, not everyone is pleased with its impact.
In a recent interview Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said that the series ‘spins’ the Formula 1 narrative to make it more entertaining.
One of ‘Drive to Survive’ executive producers, Paul Martin, says the series doesn’t do that.
“Over the four series, Drive to Survive hasn’t over-editorialised anything,” Martin told BBC Sport.
Some have even suggested that in the final race of the 2021 season, race director Michael Masi broke the rules to create a more entertaining finish for fans, with the ‘Drive to Survive’ audience in mind. Martin completely dismisses this notion.
“It’s just people under enormous pressure making decisions in the moment,” he explained.
“There’s no way anybody was thinking: ‘Will this play well on Netflix?’”
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He added that the series does not depict the aftermath of Abu Dhabi, and the reactions from the teams, drivers and fans.
“The aftermath doesn’t figure in the series – that’s above and beyond our remit. We’re not there to form opinion. We’re there to tell an authentic version of what went down and how that race ended.”
Martin was also asked to comment on Mercedes’ revolutionary ‘zeropod’ W13.
“Big difference, it looked really cool on the grid,” he said.
“The sidepod is to cool down the power unit and they have made it really, really small, especially the hole. I cannot imagine how the engine is cooling down with such a small hole.
“Currently, that new, kind of different shape of the sidepod… I can’t see how the performance is because they are not really quick like Ferrari, what they had in Barcelona and the current results.
“But it looks really different and I’m curious to see how the true performance is from those sidepods.”
