was tom cruise in drive to survive season 5

How Netflix's 'Drive to Survive' Turbocharged the Global Popularity of Formula 1

Ahead of season five, the show's producers tell Esquire about putting a rocket under the once geriatric image of grand prix racing

On Friday March 8, 2019, a new show arrived on the Netflix homepage, changing the fortunes of a single sport forever, and giving new meaning to the phrase “car crash TV”.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive promised behind-the-scenes access to the strange and rarefied world of the elite motor sport — where teams are owned by unsavoury petrochemical tycoons and 20 turbo-charged hobbits with unplaceable accents hurtle across the globe in space-age racing cars with million-dollar engines that can hit 230mph.

Formula 1 had been popular for decades without ever being remotely cool. It was the sporting equivalent of a middle-aged potbelly poured into bootcut jeans. Incredibly, Formula 1: Drive to Survive would transform this travelling circus of unimaginable wealth, inflated egos and cutting-edge engineering into something that otherwise politically correct progressives could admit to following. Even Americans, for decades resistant to F1’s high-pitched siren song, professed themselves converts.

How does a sport that ought to offend every contemporary liberal sensibility, celebrating (as it does) sports-washing autocracies, playboy billionaires, toxic fumes and rampant male aggression, thrive in an age when confessing to sipping from a single-use plastic cup risks potential cancellation?

“I don’t think anyone envisaged it landing the way that it has,” Drive to Survive producer James Gay-Rees tells Esquire , on a video call. “You never can. It doesn’t matter what you’re making. Even Tom Cruise lands the odd turkey.”

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F1, Gay-Rees says, does have some obvious advantages to the documentary filmmaker (he has previous as the producer of Asif Kapadia’s brilliant Senna , among many other acclaimed films). “At the end of the day,” he says, “it’s young, good-looking fighter-pilot types risking their lives in rocket ships, and you don’t know if they’re going to make it. The Americans, who were maybe discovering the sport for the first time when series one launched, are like, ‘Oh shit, that’s what this is!”

Speaking in 2019, Jean Todt, then the president of the FIA, F1’s governing body, said that international motorsport faced two existential threats: the fallout from a fatal accident and the impact that racing has on the environment. The sport has survived the former tragic circumstance on a number of previous occasions, most famously the death of Ayrton Senna, in 1994. And the element of risk is, of course, a major element of motor racing’s appeal.

“I think they’ve made massive steps forward,” says James Gay-Rees. “F1 used to be a bunch of cigarette packets driving around a circuit,” he says, referring to the tobacco logos that once predominated. “The fuel is becoming more sustainable, and the sport is populated by some extremely clever engineers. Whether there’s enough time for them to crack it, who knows?”

“They are making attempts to improve,” says Naomi Schiff, a professional driver and an F1 pundit for Sky Sports. “There have been massive changes in the fuels used and a move towards biofuels. They should probably make their calendar more sustainable first, but it’s difficult.”

In any event, partly thanks to Drive to Survive , for many punters, rightly or wrongly, environmental concerns come second to the excitement of the racing, and the human-interest stories supplied by the teams.

Speaking of the Netflix show’s impact on the sport, Schiff says, “Thanks to them I can now talk to my girlfriends about motorsports, and I’ve been racing since I was 11. None of them thought I was that cool before, and now it’s the opposite.

“What Drive to Survive has done is allow the drivers to show off their personalities,” continues Schiff. “It’s much easier to connect with a sport when you feel like you know the people involved in it.”

“It helps that the drivers are quite accessible and modern,” agrees Gay-Rees.

His producing partner, Paul Martin, praises the sport’s embrace of risk, including the decision to allow cameras in. “F1 was the first sport to really open up in that way, and I think they’re reaping the benefits of that.”

During Drive to Survive ’s third season, which aired in 2021, the Netflix cameras came uncomfortably close to capturing something that approached Jean Todt’s first existential fear: the death of a driver. At the Bahrain Grand Prix in 2020, the Swiss-French racer Romain Grosjean, driving for the American team Haas, approaches a corner, jostles for space, loses control and swerves across the track and straight into a metal guardrail. We hear a single, clear “Fuck,” as his car, cut into two separate pieces, bursts into flames.

F1 used to be a bunch of cigarette packets driving around a circuit

The camera lingers on the back half of the car — a charred wreck of metal and exposed wires. He’s definitely dead, he must be dead. Then, in a scene straight from Hollywood (maybe a Tom Cruise movie), Grosjean emerges from the flames. Somehow, he’s not dead. He spent 28 seconds trapped in an inferno and survived, thanks to the car’s Halo technology, made from grade 5 titanium, which protects drivers from the worst potential debris and destruction. Later on, Grosjean reflects on the moment he made peace with death. “Where am I going to burn first? Is it going to be painful?” he says with a passive expression. It’s heart-stopping stuff, whether you’re a fan or not.

“This is more close to Top Gun than a documentary,” complains the stony Austrian boss of Mercedes, Toto Wolff, in the opening episode of season five. Some drivers, including the Red Bull team’s dead-eyed Dutch maestro, Max Verstappen, the current world champion, have complained about the dramatic element of the docudrama, suggesting that Netflix engineers fictitious rivalries between drivers. For a time he refused to be interviewed for the show.

Verstappen’s boycott is over now, though, in time for season five. Perhaps because, whatever the ethics of the sport or the show, there’s no question it makes for great TV.

'Formula 1: Drive to Survive' season five is on Netflix from Friday

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• Formula One

Review: we watched Drive to Survive season five so you don't have to

Latest version of the F1 drama relies heavily on old tropes, brings nothing new from the 2022 F1 season

You’d be forgiven for thinking you’d accidentally opened the wrong programme on your Netflix. The fifth season of Drive to Survive opens like a BBC4 travel show, with odd couple Guenther Steiner and suave Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto on a roadtrip to the Italian countryside. These are important people ( or were in the case of Binotto ), so why are they sipping wine at a table in a field? It’s impossibly contrived, and requires a heavy suspension of disbelief to imagine these two fellows hopped into a classic Fiat 500 one morning because these are the sorts of japes they always get up to. 

All the usual  Drive to Survive highlights are there – here comes journalist and commentator Will Buxton, with something vitally important in the way of obvious and unnecessary exposition to share with us. “First place is crucial if you want to come in first place”, or “engines are useful”, something like that. He’s like a fortune cookie filtered twice through an online translation tool. 

Oh, there’s human frag grenade Guenther Steiner, whose Haas team is bumping the top of the FIA’s new cost cap limits solely based on the income from his swear jar. Is that Toto Wolff staring daggers at the wall and swearing in German? Here’s that smiley Danny Ricciardo saying something cheeky and endearing. He also swears, but not because he’s angry.

There’s a Groundhog Day feel to early episodes as you bounce back to the start of the season to find out the root of what has been going wrong for people. It’s an awkward quirk of this episodic format, which works when there’s a strong story that the cameras have picked up, but flounders during the obvious moments of filler. 

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Hardcore fans will immediately spot the moments where the commentators have been roped in to record extra lines of dialogue, convenient shots from some random point in the season shoehorned in, or meetings staged for maximum awkwardness. Was Silverstone 2022 the great race in the history of F1? Judging by the number of times we see it explored from exhaustive angles in the first half of the latest season of Drive to Survive you’d have to say it was.

There are far fewer meme-worthy moments from this season (although the ‘no context Tom Cruise giving advice in the Mercedes garage’ scene is a delight – "you just have to pass people"), you get the feeling that the subjects have all become too camera weary. That is, apart from the likes of Oscar Piastri and Nyck de Vries, whippersnappers who give off the air of having grown up watching the show. In fact they're so young it might even be why they wanted to become F1 drivers. Or camera savvy if it’s Christian Horner, who appears to have adopted his film crew, taking them home for Christmas and getting the kids to wave to them on the phone.

Horner seems to play the game better than any of the other team bosses, but why does he sound like he’s practised everything he says in front of the mirror already? The occasional moments of joy from season five come from watching him goad Toto Wolff into another furious outburst. 

The ultimate issue with Drive to Survive is that even in its fifth season it still plays like a no-context intro to F1, explaining absolutely everything to try and broaden its appeal. It’s a whistlestop tour of identikit concrete paddocks across the globe, but where the allure of early seasons for hardcore fans was in the way that the Netflix crew managed to peer behind the media façade and get us a glimpse behind the scenes, now it feels like the media façade has been beefed up and extended. 

There’s nothing particularly revelatory in this fifth season of the show, aside from how awful the Haas team were to Mick Schumacher (assuming you can trust anything you see on here anymore), slating him on camera. If you’re an Aston Martin, Williams or Alfa Romeo fan then there’s no point squinting at your screen waiting for a background glimpse of one of your guys. 

Of course, for those hardcore followers of F1 the genuine action is on track, and Drive to Survive merely offers a year-old psycho-drama for casual watchers. Consider our bouche amused, though, we’re certainly looking forward to the return of the real thing to our screens this weekend. “F1 is F1 and Drive to Survive is Drive to Survive ,” as Will Buxton might helpfully clarify.

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Drive to Survive Season 5 review: Still a must-watch despite drawbacks

A word of caution for those wishing to view the latest formula 1 offering from netflix's drive to survive documentary series, which releases today..

Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

The beginning of season five starts with a quick recap of the 2021 season finale which, for some fans, might prove a bruising experience given the controversial events from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

But that shouldn't detract from what is another must-watch series, with the opening segment of the 2022 season providing a nice palate cleanser as buddies Mattia Binotto and Gunther Steiner enjoy a getaway in the Italian Dolomites in a Fiat 500, visiting the now former Ferrari principal's vineyard.

It sets the tone for the entire season, deftly balancing the tension and rivalries that make F1 so compelling with light-hearted moments that show a more human side to the protagonists. The opening episode quickly shifts gears to focus on the Bahrain curtain raiser and the 'new dawn' of F1 with the new-for-2022 technical regulations.

Netflix Drive to Survive Season 5: Release date, how to watch and more

More comedic relief follows when Mercedes' radical zero-pod concept attracts a lot of attention - and more than a hint of scorn - by rival drivers. While their reservations soon prove justified by Mercedes' on-track struggles, attention moves to Ferrari which does seem to have the tools to finally deliver the demanding tifosi another crown. It's a story arc that is followed in later episodes, even if we know by now it wasn't a happy ending....

It quickly becomes apparent that Netflix and production company Box to Box Films have stuck to their guns. After all, why change a winning formula that has helped elevate F1's popularity to unseen heights?

The fly on the wall aspect of its camera crew, which follows different drivers and teams every weekend, again delivers some candid insight and comedic gold dust that makes fans feel like they're in the moment. Sharing the heartbreak of Daniel Ricciardo and Mick Schumacher's struggles in their bespoke episodes is in contrast to the banter as Kevin Magnussen lives his best life on his unlikely Haas return.

Narrative context continues to be provided by talking heads - the excellent Will Buxton is as quotable as ever - while plenty of drivers and team bosses take centre stage in front of the camera.

Verstappen returns to the show after discussing his concerns with producers

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Having refused to take part in previous seasons due to a disagreement over the creative licence DTS takes with F1's storylines and its portrayal of drivers, reigning world champion Max Verstappen has now lent his cooperation after clearing the air with the show's producers .

Verstappen's contributions are limited to basic soundbites and platitudes, but the importance of having the current world champion on board doesn't need explaining. And the Dutchman can rest assured, the words he offers aren't twisted by Netflix.

The show is even self-aware enough to point out its status as an entertainment product and not a documentary, with Mercedes chief Toto Wolff likening it to Hollywood blockbuster film, Top Gun.

One of the series' main points of criticism, its tendency to mix on-board radio comments and pit wall reactions with unrelated action footage, continues in season five but its transgressions feel less egregious than in previous years and mainly help propel the episodes forward.

After the explosive conclusion to the 2021 season, 2022 offered less unfettered drama and you could be forgiven for thinking that the show would go to greater lengths to conjure up storylines. But all in all, it hasn't really done that. Most of last year's major talking points are covered with broad but quite fair strokes, even if they are just a bit flatter than 2021's rollercoaster.

One complaint is that Zhou Guanyu's Silverstone crash is milked for all it's worth, with endless replays and dramatic pauses before revealing the outcome. It's the Romain Grosjean's 2020 Bahrain GP crash playbook followed to a tee.

Few segments are particularly revealing for diehard F1 fans, but it's those little extras that make DTS worth watching for them. We don't need to dip behind the scenes to be reminded of how bad Mercedes' issues were, but Red Bull team boss Christian Horner openly revelling in its downfall and speculating on whether Lewis Hamilton will retire or not is a cheeky bit of colour, picking up the thread of a hostile rivalry that dominated season four.

Rivalry between Horner and Wolff remains a feature of new Drive to Survive series

Photo by: Motorsport Images

We previously knew about Wolff's fury in team principal meetings as he tried to convince his colleagues to address porpoising in 2022 while facing fierce resistance from his Red Bull nemesis, but seeing parts of it included in the show makes us want to break out the popcorn and snigger along with amused bystanders Andreas Seidl and Jost Capito. After all, the years of Mercedes dominance haven't made Wolff's counterparts particularly sympathetic to his plight.

The popcorn stash gets raided again when we get to follow Ferrari's many strategy meltdowns and Red Bull catches flak for its cost cap breach. Or when the battle for Oscar Piastri's services between Alpine and McLaren comes to a head, letting us listen in on private talks between respective team bosses Otmar Szafnauer and Zak Brown. Future Bond villain Fernando Alonso gets our nomination for actor in a supporting role, throwing a spanner in the works at Alpine with his sudden move to Aston Martin. "I'm still the bad guy," the Spaniard grins to the camera.

Hyping up the glamour of the inaugural Miami GP will certainly indulge Liberty Media, but DTS doesn't shy away from fan service either. AlphaTauri's bromance between Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda is scooped up rather generously and series star Steiner again grabs a lot of screen time. This time, though, we also get to see a more weighty, human side behind the Haas team boss' mischievous jokes and f-bombs. They're just like the rest of us, these F1 team bosses. We even get to see Szafnauer iron his own shirts!

Having said that, it is rather puzzling to see Ricciardo get a much bigger send-off than four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel. The German barely features and doesn't really receive the farewell from the show befitting his glittering career.

The 2021 season was a tough act to follow and some of season five's weaker episodes don't quite scale the same heights as last season. The exclusive footage that DTS thrives on is just about juicy enough to make this season a must-watch again, even if some elements will inevitably be grating to F1's most ardent apologists.

Casual and new fans, the main focus group after all, won't care about those details though, and they're in for another ride.

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Season 5 – Formula 1: Drive to Survive

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Drive to Survive, Season 5, Netflix review - fly-on-the wall F1 show may need a reboot | reviews, news & interviews

Drive to survive, season 5, netflix review - fly-on-the wall f1 show may need a reboot, the mercedes versus red bull battle just keeps getting uglier.

The backstage revelations about the politics and personalities that fuel Formula One have made Drive to Survive one of Netflix ’s most reliable bestsellers, but on this fifth outing there’s a lurking sense that the novelty is wearing off.

Viewers were gripped by earlier series because they were granted an inside view of an elite, cosmically expensive sport which had hitherto kept itself neurotically fenced off from the general public. This time around, there’s a sneaking feeling that there isn’t quite enough fascinating content to fill the 10 new episodes, though it’s amusing to be reminded of the string of disastrous tactical cock-ups that ruined Ferrari’s 2022 season.

Things begin promisingly in episode one. It puts us inside a quaint old Fiat 500 with Ferrari team manager Mattia Binotto and his counterpart from the somewhat lowlier Haas team, Guenther Steiner, whose expletive-splattered rantings have made him D2S ’s best-loved character. With Binotto at the wheel, they potter around the Dolomites and chill out at Binotto’s very agreeable vineyard, cheerfully shooting the breeze as if all the stress and skulduggery of F1 had evaporated in the mountain air (Binotto and Steiner pictured below ).

It’s rather charming, but it’s a red herring. As the series hits its stride, it’s not long before spite, malice and bad temper become the dominant characteristics as the focus narrows itself down to the seething antagonism between Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and Red Bull supremo Christian Horner. We got quite a bit of this in season 4, when Mercedes were left nursing a massive grievance after (in their view) Lewis Hamilton was robbed of the world championship by a dodgy referee, but here it becomes like a giant chip on the shoulder of the whole series.

Netflix have opted for the cult-of-personality approach and decided to build up Horner as the quasi-presenter of the series, often using him as the go-to talking head on various issues. In episode 7, there’s a jarring little sequence at the Horners’ luxurious Oxfordshire home. Christian and wife “Ginger Spice” Geri have a suspiciously scripted-sounding discussion over the kitchen counter about the merits of Red Bull driver “Checo” Perez, and how there’s no room for emotion in the gladiatorial abattoir of F1. When Red Bull finally win both the drivers’ and constructors’ championship, Horner finds his triumph sullied by allegations that Red Bull have illegally overspent their budget, and he gets grumpier than ever. “The best way to become unpopular in this sport is to win,” he growls, theatrically. Shades of Kenneth Williams’s “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!” ( pictured below , Lewis Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo and Checo Perez).

But maybe it’s time for a back-to-basics approach. Ferrari and Mercedes declined to participate in the first series of Drive to Survive and the show was probably better for it, but now the big beasts have mounted a counter-attack and are hogging the limelight. It’s made it all too lumberingly corporate, an impression highlighted by the way the inaugural Miami Grand Prix is bigged up with loads of noise and razzmatazz, as if Netflix are doing a big PR job for their home US market. Big mistake.

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Much Like the Formula 1 Drivers It Covers, ‘Drive to Survive’ Is in a Race Against Time Each Season

Sarah shachat, associate craft editor.

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Race car driving is far more complicated, suspenseful, and potentially heart-stopping than just a bunch of left turns. Formula 1 , the international car racing series with the fastest cars still able to be driven on the road, has delivered dynasties, rivalries, chess match tactics and epic overtakes for over 70 years. But, at least in America, the sport has long been a tree falling in the woods with no one there to hear whether or not it makes a sound. Now, each season of F1 is a tree falling in the woods filmed from every angle for the Netflix docuseries “ Formula 1: Drive to Survive .”

“We’ve always been aiming to make a show that can transcend the sport, which is not to say that we don’t want existing sports fans to love the show. We absolutely do, but we wanted something that was accessible,” co-executive producer Tom Rogers told IndieWire. “I’m a lifelong Formula 1 fan. But many people in our team were new to Formula 1, and it’s about creating a show that appeals to all of those different demographics. And I think, with the growth of the sport globally, we obviously can’t say that that’s all down ‘Drive to Survive,’ but hopefully ‘Drive to Survive’ has played its part in that process.”

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Produced by sports documentary specialists Box To Box Films, “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” into a million viewers in the U.S. watching each F1 race. But, like the drivers themselves, the team behind the series has to work fast. Really fast.

Season 5 dropped February 24, not a week before the season’s culmination at Bahrain Grand Prix, and the filmmakers are already constructing the building blocks of Season 6. It’s a monumental editing challenge that “ Drive to Survive ” tackles with many, many hands and with a bit of guesswork.

“The tricky bit is, to create an episode that has a satisfying beginning, middle, and end, you need to know how that person’s trajectory completes over the whole season,” Rogers said. “So even for an [early] episode, you almost need to know what’s gonna happen to that character towards the end of the season. We try to start the edits at an early enough juncture that we’re not putting everything too late in the season and it becomes really pressured. But inevitably you want to have that ability to see the season as a whole.”

In Season 5, for instance, U.S. team Haas gets its spotlight in Episode 1, much earlier than usual, examining Kevin Magnussen’s surprise return to an F1 driver’s seat and junior driver Mick Schumacher’s struggles in his second season — all with team principal Guenther Steiner’s signature candor. That episode operates as a strong season opener while effectively foreshadowing Haas cutting Schumacher at the season’s end, but the surprise pole (the first place starting position) Magnussen wins in the Brazil Grand Prix is grafted onto the end of a totally separate episode. It maintains that sense of a series that recreates the arc of the actual Formula 1 and speaks to just how little time “Drive to Survive” has to incorporate any end-of-season surprises.

Rogers points to the “massive” team of editors at Netflix, Box to Box, and Formula 1 for each episode, most of them converging on the season’s final episodes. “As soon as you see the episodes on Netflix, if you go to the credits, you can normally tell which episodes have been later in the schedule,” he said. “The list of editors gets longer and longer, and they’re supported by a team of edit producers who are like the story producer, team researchers, loggers, story producers, a very large team of assistant editors and post-production people as well.”

The edit team has to react quickly to the twists and turns of the unfolding F1 Season, while producers need to make strategic guesses about where to put time, resources, and spotlight focus. The driver contract carousel known as “silly season” looms over this season’s fifth and sixth episodes, which is appropriate given the sparks caused by Fernando Alonso and Oscar Piastri jumping ship from Alpine to Aston Martin and McLaren, respectively.

That is certainly not where anyone in the Formula 1 world thought the 2022 season would go, but the docuseries team developed strategies to both hone in on areas of focus and log the right level of coverage. While Rogers said that the trick of the series is to create the perception that cameras are everywhere, “Drive to Survive” found over the COVID-19 pandemic that embedding shooting crews into teams, sometimes with only one crew at a race, led to better results than trying to be everywhere at once.

“One of those principles that we had to adopt [for COVID] was this idea of embedding with the teams, becoming part of their sanitary bubble,” Rogers said. “And we found that by lowering the footprint, but having crews get more intimate access, we ended up with a better level of content, and that’s the principle that we still try to use moving forward.”

Because the number of teams and drivers is relatively controlled, “Drive to Survive” treats the drivers, race engineers, strategists, and mechanics as recurring characters with the same care and sentiment as a long-running series. Daniel Riccardo is probably feeling pretty OK right now about being paid $18 million to not drive for McLaren in 2023, but the Australian’s absence from the grid ended up guiding the end of “Drive to Survive” Season 5, including a montage of Riccardo from throughout the Netflix show’s run.

“It’s Danny’s voice that we hear in voiceover in that first episode [of Season 1] talking about what it is to drive a car. We spent time with his mom and dad during a race, and I think the beauty of a show like ‘Drive to Survive’ is we’ve sort of been on that journey with Daniel,” Rogers said. “He’s been an enormous part of the success and the journey of the show. And he definitely leaves a big hole there. It felt fitting that we had to mark that exit, and it was actually quite a cathartic process for us, as well, because you forget some of those great moments over the five years.”

With Rogers and team already looking ahead, do they have an idea of where Season 6 might take viewers? After all, they knew early during Season 5 that Miami would be one of the races that warranted a bigger footprint.

“Everybody’s already talking about Vegas,” Rogers teased.

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Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 — release date, trailer and everything you need to know

Netflix's F1 documentary series returns.

One of Netflix's longest-running documentary series, and a show credited with driving a huge renewed interest in the sport it's about, Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 is speeding to Netflix.

Drive to Survive season 5 (not Drive to Sur-five, Netflix?) follows the F1 2022 tour season, following the drivers, teams and races to give fans a behind-the-scenes look at all the drama of the sport.

If you're interested in this new Netflix original and want to know more, this guide will give you all the information you need.

Fans of the motorsport should also check out our guide on how to watch F1 2023 , for advice on how to watch the tour this year, as the already-confirmed sixth season of Drive to Survive will focus on the races this year. We've also got a guide on how to watch Formula E 2023 if that's more your speed.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 release date

Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 releases on February 24. Each of the 10 episodes of the documentary series will be available to stream at the same time, so you won't have to wait for a weekly release.

How to watch Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5

As a Netflix original, Formula 1: Drive to Survive is available to watch on — you guessed it — Netflix, which of course requires a subscription to the streaming service.

You can also watch the previous four seasons of the show on the popular streaming service, but you won't have missed anything imperative if you jump in on season 5.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 trailer

A week before Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 was set to debut, Netflix released a trailer for the series, which you can find below:

The trailer shows crashes, fires and interviews, setting up a dramatic run of television.

Before the trailer was released, Netflix also aired a first glimpse teaser for the show ( which you can find here ) though it's much shorter than the trailer.

What's new in Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5?

Formula 1: Drive to Survive 's fifth season covers the F1 2022 season, in which the Constructor's Champion was Red Bull Racing-RBPT and the Driver's Champion was Max Verstappen.

While Verstappen sat out previous seasons of Drive to Survive , accusing the producers of manufacturing the drama presented and unfairly presenting certain drivers and teams as villains in order to artificially create a narrative, he's finally doing interviews for season 5. Apparently, he came to an understanding with the team behind the doc, which should make this season an honest show of the tour.

The 2022 season of Formula 1 had its fair share of drama with underdog winners, contract disputes and contentious rule changes, but other than the names of the episodes, we don't know a huge amount about the narrative direction the show will take. You can find those episode titles below:

• The New Dawn
• Bounce Back
• Like Father, Like Son
• Matter of Principal
• Pardon My French
• Nice Guys Finish Last
• Over The Limit
• End of the Road

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Tom is the streaming and ecommerce writer at What to Watch, covering streaming services in the US and UK. His goal is to help you navigate the busy and confusing online video market, to help you find the TV, movies and sports that you're looking for without having to spend too much money.

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How to watch Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 right now — Netflix release date and time

Will Drive to Survive season 5 show us the Red Bull drama we need?

You can finally watch Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5, and see how much of the drama Netflix is able to reveal. This was a season unlike any of those that preceded it, and that's not just about Lewis Hamilton's podium struggles. Dropping the same week as the first testing for the new F1 live streams , Netflix's racing docuseries is going to be a must-watch before the new season begins.

While many drivers had extremely dramatic seasons — Daniel Ricciardo moving from starting for McLaren to being Red Bull's new reserve driver — there are two teams that have fans demanding more footage. First and foremost is Oracle Red Bull Racing, whose 2022 season has a giant red flag on it, despite winning both the driver's and constructors' F1 championships.

An incident at the Brazil Grand Prix, one during which Max Verstappen refused to follow orders to help teammate Sergio Pérez, has been replaying in fans' brains since last November. However, in our Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 review , we explained how this season sadly doesn't include Brazil.

But Drive to Survive season 5 won't be light on drama across the paddocks, as decisions from Ferrari and Alpine (and their drivers) also raised flags of concern.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive earned its spot in our best shows on Netflix list, and we expect season 5 to be good enough to keep its spot. However, we're curious what life holds for season 6, what with Ricciardo — often seen as the 'face' of Drive to Survive — is unclear. Here's how to watch Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 online.

When does Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 come out on Netflix?

All 10 episodes of Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 premiered on Netflix today (Friday, Feb. 24) at 3 a.m. ET / 12 a.m. PT / 8 a.m. GMT / 7 p.m. AEDT.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive season 5 trailer

The trailer for Drive to Survive season 5 is all about Max Verstappen, at least to start. The 2022 F1 champion delivers a confident monologue, and we see Lewis Hamilton say that this season's comeback has to happen. 

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• Cast & crew

Bounce Back

• Episode aired Feb 24, 2023

Mercedes principal Toto Wolff works to combat the team's unexpected struggles, while Lewis Hamilton navigates a bumpy ride in the team's redesigned car. Mercedes principal Toto Wolff works to combat the team's unexpected struggles, while Lewis Hamilton navigates a bumpy ride in the team's redesigned car. Mercedes principal Toto Wolff works to combat the team's unexpected struggles, while Lewis Hamilton navigates a bumpy ride in the team's redesigned car.

• Mattia Binotto
• Will Buxton
• Jost Capito

• Self - Team Principal, Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

• Self - F1 Journalist
• Self - CEO & Team Principle, Williams Racing

• Self - Driver, Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen

• Self - CEO & Team Principle, Red Bull

• Self - Driver, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing

• Self - Team Principal, F1 Haas Team
• (as Guenther Steiner)

• Self - Team Principal & CEO Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

User reviews

• February 24, 2023 (United States)
• United Kingdom
• Box to Box Films
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 40 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Drive to Survive Season Five: Toto Wolff's furious porpoising row with Christian Horner revealed

Formula 1: Drive to Survive has launched with another 10 episodes of behind-the-scenes action, a week before the 2023 season gets underway in Bahrain; Mercedes boss Toto Wolff warns rivals during heated row: "I'm going to come after you"

Friday 24 February 2023 07:02, UK

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was involved in a furious row over porpoising with Formula 1's other team principals, the release of season five of Netflix's Drive to Survive has revealed.

Having entered 2022 on a streak of eight successive constructors' titles, there was shock as Mercedes began their campaign well off the pace of Red Bull and Ferrari, with the team unable to control the unexpected bouncing of their W13 following the introduction of radical new design regulations.

The bouncing was so severe that seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton emerged from his car in visible discomfort after June's Azerbaijan Grand Prix, leaving Wolff adamant that the rules should be changed to protect the drivers.

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At a meeting of all the team principals at the Canadian Grand Prix a week later, Wolff addressed his counterparts in what became an explosive encounter, as Red Bull's Christian Horner and Ferrari's Mattia Binotto hit back at him.

"I can tell you that all of you are playing a dangerous game," Wolff said.

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"If a car ends in the wall because it's too stiff or it's bottoming out, you are in the **** and I'm going to come after you."

Red Bull boss Christian Horner questioned whether Wolff was "playing to the cameras", suggesting that the conversation should be held without the Netflix crew present.

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Wolff responded: "I don't care. If you think this is a little game and performance, I tell you, you are very, very wrong."

Binotto and Horner both argued that it was down to Mercedes to change the setup of their car to reduce porpoising, rather than the sport's governing body, the FIA, to change the rules.

"No, Toto. Safety is a matter of team responsibility, braking system, suspension," Binotto said.

Wolff angrily responded: "Each of you has found something to limit the problem, congratulations!"

Losing patience with Wolff's argument, Horner shouted: "Well change your car. You've got a problem. Change your ****ing car."

The argument continued as Wolff said that his rivals, who were suffering bouncing to a lesser degree, had a responsibility to their own drivers to update the regulations.

Eventually, F1 president Stefano Domenicali stepped in, promising that the FIA would discuss the issue "in the proper way".

The FIA ultimately introduced a directive that immediately forced teams to limit the level of "vertical oscillations" their drivers were being exposed to, while further regulation changes were introduced ahead of the 2023 season to ensure teams run their cars higher above the ground.

The changes appeared to have little impact on Red Bull, with Max Verstappen charging to the drivers' title and helping his team end Mercedes' eight-year streak of constructors' titles.

Mercedes did improve as the season went on, with George Russell winning the penultimate race of the year in Brazil, but ultimately were never fully able to address their bouncing issues.

All 10 episodes of Formula 1: Drive to Survive are available on Netflix from Friday, February 24. Sky customers can access Netflix via Sky Q and Sky Glass.

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