Before I begin I’d like to be totally honest with you, the reason why I love this show so much may be because I’m a little bias. When my first was born, I stayed in the hospital for 2 days. During that time I was by myself in the evenings as my husband went home with our dog. I had to watch something on TV. The rooms didn’t have cable but I did bring my tablet. So while we were there (Though I could be wrong and could have ended up watching on my cell phone) I seen the show “Formula 1: Drive to Survive”. For some reason even though I had never knew anything about the show except for it was auto racing I felt drawn to it. I binged the entire 2 seasons while I stayed there. And I even watched the 2 seasons again once I got home.
One of the things I really like about the series and how it captures the viewer is that each season (thus far) it give recaps about the rules. As someone who never knew anything about formula 1 this is a great selling point to watch. To be completely honest, I grew up with Nascar. Which I assumed Formula 1 was similar. Not even close. I didn’t know that Formula 1 was teams with two drivers. I also didn’t know it went by distance and not necessarily laps. I also didn’t know that there was only a specific amount of teams in general. I didn’t know anything about the cars itself. But I can tell you the cars go so fast and are way more freaky then Nascars. The series not only follows drivers and their teams through the season but they do have different teams as a bit of a focus each episode so you really get a seemingly great look of the different dynamics of each team. I felt like by watching it I was learning. It is also a great refresher to see this every season as they give little reminders for decisions made. Sometimes when they show a penalty I have literally no idea why it happens and an expert will come and explain it. This is fantastic. One of the last things that I want to do while watching a show is googling why a call was made. Also compared to Nascar there seems to be many more rules. At least from the calling side of things.
One thing is most of the seasons share the same rotating people. These have been people who started as kids racing and moving their ways up the ranks to be in F1. Just like many sports. The difference is sometimes teams will hire a new driver and drop old ones and then some favorites aren’t picked up for a season either. But even not being picked sometimes the show does touch base on them if they are a reserve driver or someone looking to get picked up the following season too. Which is great because some drivers make great impressions and the fans just want to know their update.
And lastly, the vehicles are MIND BLOWINGLY fragile. Looking at Nascar, if a car has a bit of a fender bender they are able to likely get repaired and back out on the road racing. F1 cars are damn near floating on the pavement that they are racing across. If the wrong rock pops up underneath and they hit anything at all they are likely done for the day. Which makes it ever so difficult. They have a lot of safety things just as Nascar but they also have a lot of risks too. They aren’t exactly as covered as Nascars are.
If you’re anyone like me, you gotta watch just for the drama. It’s nothing like a soap opera. But it has its stories. If you have time or want to, start at season one. And don’t feel bad because some episodes are relatively short around 30 minutes. It will give you the back stories for the most part and little bits. There is even a season that Mac Verstappan isn’t in because he thinks they edited him to look like the bad guy. And mini spoiler alert: Yes he comes back at some season sometime. As I may have mentioned before too, it’s interesting because these people have raced nearly their entire lives they have grown up with each other and while they can seem friendly they are also super competitive competing for spots on the top teams and keeping themselves in the top to stay there. Then you have conflict between team principals, owners and drivers, drivers and drivers. So if you want a bit of a different drama show instead the yelling and screaming matches from a housewives kitchen, this is another reason to watch the show!
Re-watchable factor is also high. I say this as a bias individual because I’ve re-watched it multiple times before. And by multiple I mean a minimum of 5x each season. In fact I’m re-watching the last one in anticipation for this one. Because there is so many different things happening I find that I’m always picking up on new info. Also sometimes if I’m on my phone or sewing I’m paying attention but not always attentively listening right?
Overall if you are thinking about a new show, like drama, sports and documentaries without being too picky on the subject matter, check out Drive to Survive. It’s a great show for multiple reasons as I mentioned above. I know I cannot wait to see the next season when that releases. And while I wont be watching it in a hospital bed anymore. I still will be pulled into the drama, triumphs, and moments that many may have seen previously. And without being too obvious, if you actively watch the races, what better way to relive those moments you seen the previous year than the recaps of the series!
Stacey J. Girard 