Diatribe to Survive

I've been watching Formula 1 for over 30 years, so I would be lying to you if I said I wasn't a little bit precious about it. It means a lot to me. I have friends who feel similarly and they have an unending hatred for the Netflix show dedicated to our sport, 'Drive to Survive'.

I wasn't as quick to judge. At first, I was glass half-full about Drive to Survive. I felt anything that helped grow and strengthen the sport had to be a good thing. Plus, I felt it would be nice to talk to 'lay people' about the sport and not seem like some nerdy weirdo.

Again, my friends felt differently. They became aggravated when these new band-wagon fans would get F1 trivia wrong. I looked at this the other way however, I saw it as an opportunity to educate and grow the community.

It wasn't long though, before my confidence began to wane.

The Palace Bar big screen

On the Sunday of the Brazilian Grand Prix last yea, I was in The Palace Bar on Dublin's Camden Street, which is now a sports bar. They have a GIGANTIC screen behind the main bar and I decided to take the opportunity to watch the race whilst enjoying some lovely, creamy pints.

Sitting next to me (I should highlight I wasn't alone, I had a friend with me) there were two ladies completely decked out in McLaren garb. Whilst the race was in full swing, I noticed these two ladies had barely looked up from their phones to take in the action on the big screen.

Once the race had concluded, I asked them what they thought. "Lando broke down, so it wasn't very good." They replied in disappointment.

Giving them the benefit of doubt, "well their favourite driver retired, probably zapped the interest out of it for them." I thought.

"He did ok in the Sprint race yesterday though", I said in an attempt to be sympathetic to their cause.

"The what?", replied one of the ladies.

"The Sprint race, yesterday", I repeated.

"Oh, we don't really watch the races, we're just Lando fans", they proclaimed.

The race is the other way

It was this exchange where my optimism for Drive to Survive began to crack. These new blow-in fans weren't interested in the sport, they were interested in the Soap Opera of DTS. And it very much is a Soap Opera, it creates narratives, adds false drama and even commits the sin of adding sound effects. The drivers aren't real, they're characters.

This is where my worry creeps in. When these fair-weather fans inevitably lose interest. What will become of the sport I've loved for decades? The 2021 season was arguably the most dramatic we've ever experienced, certainly in the 21st Century anyway. Therefore the last series of DTS wrote itself. 2022 was less dramatic. There was no final-round, final-lap conclusion to the season. By half way through it was essentially a forgone conclusion that Max & Red Bull were going to take the spoils. So what are Netflix going to do with the upcoming series of DTS that is just a little over three weeks away. I fear the fiction injected into the narrative is going to go into overdrive, to compensate for the lack of real, on track drama.

Pose for the cameras

Will the new swell of fans see right through it all? Or will the producers of the show give them enough synthetic spice to keep them hooked?

If it's the latter, there's a bigger problem at stake. The alienation of the die-hard, long standing fans of the sport. People like me. I can see passed DTS and I can fully enjoy F1 for what it really is, even when the season isn't necessarily a nail-biting classic. There is plenty of technical and political intrigue for me to sink my teeth into; and I can enjoy a HAAS battling with a Williams for 18th position.

Sadly though, the fiction is starting to creep into reality. I'm beginning to see those involved in the sport playing up to the cameras and the dramatisiation of Netflix spilling into reality. That worries me, a lot.

If this is the road F1 goes down, we long-term fans will start to tune out. There are plenty of other forms of motorsport for us to fulfill are racing hunger. That will leave F1 with this new DTS audience. An audience, predominantly filled with short-attention span Gen-Zs, who will eventually grow bored of F1 and move on to the next trend.

Liberty Media, commercial rights holders of F1, will then start to lose money on their massive investment and sell to the highest bidder, or worse still, the sport will implode-in-on-itself.

I hope this doesn't happen, of course. I hope a middle-ground can be found, but my faith is shaky, as shaky as the sport currently finds itself and it's all thanks to a TV show. Also, thanks to DTS, we don't get our official season reviews anymore. This is how it starts, first she tells you she's staying out with her friends, then she stops returning your calls.

Please F1, don't break my heart.