Drive to Survive Season 3 lacks some action, but has plenty of unique footage
General
- GPblog.com
Drive to Survive season 3 was released on Friday and the Netflix crew was able to provide some unique footage once again. All the teams worked together in the third season and were given screen time. Netflix has once again made this a strong series, but the tension still seems to be lacking a bit here and there.
Building up to highlights
The series starts at the beginning of the season, the winter tests. Of course, Racing Point showed many similarities with the Mercedes of the previous year. Drive to Survive does not show the building process of the car, but the viewer is taken into the factory.
It must be said that sometimes there is a long build-up to the next exciting moment. In the second episode, it takes about ten minutes before there is any real action on the track, which can sometimes distract the viewer's attention. Also, images from the wrong moments are sometimes used. During qualifying in Austria, footage of shocked Red Bull Racing mechanics is clearly used when Max Verstappen crashed out. On the TV's in the pit box you can see this. Little mistakes like this take the authenticity out of the series.
A rarely seen friendship on screen
The Netflix team does know how to use previously unseen images. Christian Horner and Toto Wolff are followed closely during various protests over yellow flags and DAS for example. Despite being the two's biggest rivals on the track, they enjoy spending time together. An unsuspected friendship is clearly depicted.
Additional text, sequence and key themes
Netflix isn't averse to having commentators chime in with a few extra sentences or rephrase certain phrases. This way, certain moments are blown up just a little bit more. This is basically nothing new, since this also happened during the first two seasons. However, Netflix does seem to be using a little less of these kinds of extra one-liners this year.
If you are familiar with the Formula 1 season, you will immediately notice that the series does not follow the order of the calendar. But Netflix manages to work around this in a good way, so that it is not noticeable to viewers who are less familiar with the calendar. regularly, events from a few years earlier are also brought up, such as Russia 2018. In that race, Valtteri Bottas had to give away the race win to teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Most of the key moments of the Formula One season are included. Pierre Gasly's bizarre win, Alexander Albon's difficulties, Ferrari's dramatic season and of course Romain Grosjean's huge crash. Netflix managed to include almost everything in this season's ten episodes.
A big miss
One topic that Netflix almost doesn't cover is the #WeRaceAsOne campaign. There's almost no word on it. It's not until the end of the series, in the tenth episode, that Hamilton gets a few minutes of screen time to say something about it. Since the campaign was treated so big in Formula 1, it's remarkable that it barely appears in the series.
Drive to Survive season 3 has less tension than the previous seasons. More behind the scenes, but less action on the track. It is a little less compelling than season 1 or 2, but definitely worth watching.