An exclusive look inside ‘Drive to Survive.' Plus, readers rate F1 team liveries

New York Times

04-03-2025

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Welcome back to Prime Tire, where we're wondering if you're interested in an exclusive look at how 'Drive to Survive' is made?
Good!
Behind the scenes of 'Drive to Survive'!
The new season of Netflix's 'Drive to Survive' docu-series drops Friday.
The Athletic's Madeline Coleman was invited to Ferrari's garage at the Las Vegas Grand Prix in November to exclusively learn how the series is filmed and also spoke with the production company in the weeks leading up to the season release. The result is a behind-the-scenes look at how the show is made, including this upcoming season.
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Some takeaways:
🏎️ The show is evolving. The producers are deliberately changing up the formula (get it?) in Season 7 to keep audiences engaged. In one episode, drivers filmed parts of the Singapore GP weekend themselves using phones provided by Netflix.
🎬 The film crew is smaller than you'd think. Despite the massive scale of F1, 'Drive to Survive' operates with surprisingly small film crews. 'People always think we have bigger crews than we do,' said one producer. 'There's always complaints at the end of the year (of) 'Oh, you didn't cover this' or 'You weren't there.' It's Piers and the sound guy. We can't be everywhere at once.' (Side note: Piers and The Sound Guys would be a great band name.)
🤝 Six years of trust drives access. There's a great anecdote about a meeting with very skeptical team principals before the first season was filmed. Now the show's crew sometimes embeds with Ferrari while wearing team kit! (Hint: The guy with the boom mic probably isn't a mechanic.
Check out the story before you watch the show this weekend, yeah? Let's throw it to Madeline herself with a fun nugget from her reporting.
When Ferrari and Mercedes didn't participate in the first season of 'Drive to Survive,' it opened the door for Daniel Ricciardo to become an instant star of the show.
'We'll really miss him,' executive producer Tom Hutchings said. The Singapore Grand Prix weekend was the Australian driver's last race. Hutchings said they were able to capture 'loads of last moments with him.' However, fans won't see much in this season. As I wrote, the editing portion of the process is quite tricky, with how much footage the crews capture throughout the year.
Ricciardo briefly pops up during the Singapore GP episode. But even in the Red Bull-focused episode, 'Elbows Out,' Ricciardo's storyline is told as he's fighting for a chance to replace Sergio Pérez. In the last quarter of the episode, Ricciardo reflects on his career as a short montage of his clips over the years plays and Christian Horner speaks about the decision to drop him.
The last clip of the episode is Ricciardo holding the clapperboard, saying, 'From Season 1 to Season 7, it's been a ride. Arrivederci.'
Now that Ricciardo's off the grid, will Box To Box Films bring him back as a commentator?
'Maybe. Will (Buxton) does a really good job,' Hutchings said in Las Vegas last year, a few months before it was announced that Buxton would be a pundit on Fox Sports' IndyCar coverage. 'He's phenomenal at what he does. Claire Williams is really good. Yeah, maybe one day, yeah. Besides those, yeah, I don't know.'
I know it's hard to believe, but F1 is back next weekend with the season-opening Australian GP. After a revealing pre-season testing period in Bahrain, McLaren appears to have emerged as the early title favorite.
But several critical questions remain unanswered. Here are three on my mind.
Is Red Bull's troubling testing a sign of things to come? Red Bull's testing program was disrupted, with technical director Pierre Wache admitting it was 'not as smooth a test as we expected' and the car 'did not respond how we wanted at times' during set-up experiments. Will Red Bull's traditional ability to solve problems come through, or are we witnessing the beginning of a difficult campaign?
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Can Ferrari translate Lewis Hamilton's enthusiasm into performance? Hamilton's excitement about his new Ferrari environment has been palpable. But concrete performance indicators remain mixed. Charles Leclerc's race simulation pace positioned Ferrari roughly alongside Mercedes but noticeably behind McLaren. Both Ferrari drivers indicated that work remains to refine the handling of the SF-25.
Is McLaren's dominance real or a testing mirage? McLaren's pace during testing — particularly Lando Norris's race simulations — sent shockwaves through the paddock. However, testing conditions and varying programs always leave room for uncertainty. Will the competitive picture shift once teams reveal their true performance in qualifying and race conditions in Melbourne?
Only 12 days to find out.
Last time out, I asked readers to weigh in on their favorite 2025 F1 liveries, and as you can see above, it was a solid mix of love for traditional looks and teams that tried something different. (You can see all the liveries here.)
What I took from this exercise: When it comes to F1 liveries, fans still love tradition but are hungry for designs that take risks. (And Sauber is striking out on both accounts 😬.)
F1 design legend Adrian Newey officially started at Aston Martin this week.
And, finally, Ferrari won a legal case preventing Enrico Cardile from starting in his new role at Aston Martin until July.
Mere hours before preseason testing.
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