Apologies for off topic…
Anyone tried this yet? I was rather surprised to see how they were completely unflinching in their portrayal of the politics, personalities and problems. There is some straight up character assassinating stuff in there. Eg: Stroll and Williams. Did liberty media fund this? Bold move if so.
Thoughts?
Edit: do you folks feel that they have used “reality show” tactics to bend the truth to look worse than it is?
First off, do you regularly follow F1 closely or did this show catch your eye?
I thought it was a wonderful series and very accurate. I think it did a great job of showing the politics and personalities. There was no character assasination. Stroll admits he was born with a silver spoon and I’m sure Claire often wonders to herself if she’s qualified to run the team. I don’t think the show used realty tactics to bend the truth in any way.
Just saw the first episodes , its the same director that made the documentary " senna"
So didn’t expect nothing less than a solid 7.5 …
I agree. I think they were rather fair in their portrayal of all who willingly participated. Hopefully, if their doing this for 2019, Merc and Ferrari have signed up, too.
I don’t really watch it as it’s usually on some other time zone.
That being said I consume all of their videos through you tube. (Which are excellent). Their usual coverage is what you’d expect and doesn’t have much of an opinion, it’s not supposed to.
The take I got is totally different than what you got.
I saw Claire as deeply regretting having taken the money in exchange for a seat, and was stuck with a toxic situation. I feel like she wants to scream out “these fuckwits are killing me” while putting on a brave face. Lance is shown driving like crap and making baby excuses. The dad is shown as domineering and they are both made to look entitled and everything wrong with paybdrivers.
They make Verstappen look impulsive and too youthful in his thinking (but not a jerk or anything). They shoe Riccardo as being rather fragile (I would be too). Horner vs the angry French guy at Renault. Etc etc.
None of it is surprising. What is surprising is that I would think that liberty which likely owns all the footage, would never sign off on something that humanizes the people for better or worse.
As a devout follower of the sport, I was pleasantly surprised at the great behind-the-scenes footage and access. Of course the whole thing is played up a bit to increase the drama, but it’s done a great job for what it set out to do, which was increase fans.
On the F1 reddit, there have been a TON of people jumping on saying, “saw the Netflix series, I’m hooked, how do I get into the sport?”, and that was Liberty’s goal. I watched with my fiancee and she enjoyed it as a non-fan, and now she’s even talking about honeymooning to a race next year! The drivers also talked about the big uptick in social media followers they gained in the week after it came out. I know someone in our house started following Carlos Sainz because of his “great hair” and “handsome looks”…
Well I’m definitely hooked. When Renault got the last laugh it was rather brutal. Pass the popcorn.
Huge mega F1 fan and massive consumer of all F1 content.
Great series of course the drama is a bit played up. Gunther Steiner is the man certainly says what on his mind!
Tj go to the Canadian Grand Prix. Great event in great city. Montreal is so easy to get around. Been going with the Mrs something like 12-15 years now it become a traditional summer vacation.
Montreal has been on the bucket list for a while, that was the first one I suggested to her! I think we will seriously consider that next year.
Overall it is an interesting show.
However it is cut to make it look more dramatic than it really is.
One of the more interesting was McLaren start of the year realising that there was a film crew nearby and a half dozen heads turn in unison to the camera man. By the end of the season the teams were a lot less guarded but after Netflix guaranteed that no one would view the footage until after the season close.
The other moment was Horner’s comment to Cyril “I see the money you saved on the engines you spent on the drivers” after Renault poached Ricciardo.
Wifey actual put it on the box for me last week and then left for bed 
I thought it was OK, I don’t watch much of anything on the TV (incl netflix etc). I probably wouldn’t go looking for it in the future.
I like the concept though.
I have some friends in F1 and have asked them about it. they assured me that it’s pretty close to what goes down - some being more dramatic and cut throat, some being less so.
Interesting show. Getting a little deeper back story on some of the drivers is good. The manufactured drama, I can do without.
One thing that really stood out was how petty really rich guys can be.
Season 2
Binged it all over the weekend. Some interesting insight into the Rich Energy debacle, though I was hoping for more from that. I think there maybe were some pending legal issues so they didn’t cover too much of it.
Also interesting to see the state of Williams at the beginning of last year and their struggles.
Anybody else notice how in S2E1 they said Verstappen passed Vettel on the last lap but it was actually lap 38 in real life.
There’s a lot of that in the series. Some of the audio isn’t synced up to the correct moments either to build more suspense. A minor annoyance to someone like me, but the casual fan doesn’t know the difference.
I popped into asseto corsa last night and drove the f1 ferarri around. Man those cars are big and heavy compared to our little karts! But they are nuts. I’m not sure I’m jealous of the gang racing f1. The cars, while exciting, are pretty insane and I tend to find walls in them. I am sure in real life, I’d be overwhelmed.
All the drivers say the braking is the biggest shocker. The deceleration Gs are insane. Even watching them in testing this past week, they brake at like the 50m board for turn 1 at Barcelona, from 330 kmh. It looks impossible.
Hopefully with the higher g forces the drivers will have to work harder. I have noticed that the driver’s necks have gotten bigger over the years as g-forces have risen. Max Verstappen is a good example of that. I agree with you TJ that the sound difference is annoying, or when they change the sound of the engine as well. I remember listening Michael Andretti comparing Indy to F1 and he was talking about braking and how he could brake so much later(50-100 meters) than in the Indycar. Granted this information is from 1993 but it is still valid today how the braking in an f1 car is second to none.