Team principals have acknowledged the part the TV show has played in bringing their sport to a wider audience, even while some drivers such as Max Verstappen have criticised that it is played for dramatic effect to sell a narrative.
The series was launched in 2018 and season four, which premiered this year, attracted its biggest audience, achieving the Netflix top 10 status in 56 different countries. The audience growth watching the sport in the US has been steady since then and crucially is hitting the younger demographic F1 wants to attract.Paul Martin, Drive to Survive producer
Martin paid tribute to the sport itself and Netflix as being fundamental in driving the surge. “It has young, good-looking guys, driving fast cars in amazing locations,” he said. “Behind it all you have powerful people and brands fighting it out. We used to joke in the early days that it was Game of Thrones in fast cars.
Netflix series producer Paul Martin says part of the appeal is ‘young, good-looking guys, driving fast cars in amazing locations’.On the opening weekend of this season the Bahrain GP was held on the same day as Nascar Cup and IndyCar races. Adam Stern of the Sports Business Journal kept track of the viewing figures. Nascar picked up just over 4m viewers, F1 1.3m and Indycar 954,000.