Finished Drive to Survive Season 3. It was good entertainment and very fun to watch, but I had a few quibbles with it.
The editing is very on the nose, to the point where I felt it can be a bit manipulative. The producers wanted to tell particular narratives and used images and sound to tell that story, regardless if they were connected to the actual event. I know all TV does this and it’s the nature of things but I felt it went too far sometimes. It would cut to reaction shots of the pit crew where you knew the footage was from a different event, or even a different race (you could sometimes see different action in the screens behind them). Some of the interviews were so heavily edited even someone like me could hear the cuts between different clips.
There’s also the question of which stories it chose to follow, with some notable exceptions. Covid was hardly mentioned, Russell standing in for Hamilton was left out, and no mention of the exit of the William’s family from the sport. I know they can’t show everything but they did find lots of time for gentleman amateur Lance Stroll. Also some of the stories were flat out fabricated, such as the “falling out” between Lando and Sainz.
I know that Drive to Survive isn’t aimed at me, it’s aimed at new fans and people who don’t really watch F1, and it does a great job informing people of the stories and characters away from the front of the grid. It’s always been a bit sensationalist and that’s understandable but this year it felt it had gone a little far. Still, it’s very entertaining and definitely worth watching.
There is also some genuinely great behind the scenes footage and some information you definitely won’t have heard before, even if you follow about six F1 podcasts like me.