P1 with Matt and Tommy - Drive to Survive Season 5 REVIEW

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

That's right! We've watched the fifth series of Netflix's Drive to Survive and we're here to answer some of your questions (without spoiling it for you!)Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok.***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P-1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. We're back in your ears, in your eyes, wherever you may be. And it's Drive to Survive Season Time. Season 5. Oh my God, Tommy. That's so many drive-to-surve seasons. And we've been lucky enough to get early access to it. We've binged the life out of it so that we could bring you this piece of information. and don't worry, we will be avoiding as many spoilers, if not all spoilers as, as, because I know, right? If I was you, I don't want to see spoilers. I want to enjoy Drive to Survive.

We just want to give you our thoughts, maybe before you head into it, you might watch this or listen to this after you've watched Drive to Survive. Either or, welcome. Aren't you excited, Tommy? I am. Yeah, we watched six, it must have been about six hours, I'd say, all 10 episodes. Yeah, bingeed it all pretty much in one go. And yeah, we won't spoil. We're not going to go, the thing is with spoilers, right? Some people go, oh, it's a spoiler. Some people are like, well, we've already watched the season.

At the end of the day, we're going to go in and sort of give our thoughts on it and a base level of things that happen, but we're not going to ruin things by going, oh, my God, this exact thing happened. And, you know, we don't want to spoil that for anyone. So we're just going to just mention it and our general thoughts on it. Exactly. So how we're going to do this is essentially go through. some of your questions that you sent in via our Twitter, Matt P1, Tommy,

and we'll just dive into it that way. So first and foremost, let's begin with, is it good? And that's from Maltesea. Wait, Maltesee. It looked like Maltese. Is it good? I think, considering we didn't have the greatest of overall seasons in terms of championship fights and whatnot, it's one of the better drive-to-surviv seasons.

I think that they've cut down on the BS. They focused in on some very interesting storylines. Of course, you've got the likes of the Oscar Piastri stuff, which is not just one specific story. There's so much connected to it that that's a really interesting part of Drive to Survive. Then you've got the whole Daniel Ricardo situation. There's plenty of things that they kind of honed into, which I enjoyed. I thought it went quite smoothly.

It feels very much like a drive to survive. So maybe it's got a limited shelf life as to how many more they could possibly do like this. But I personally enjoyed it. Yeah, I'd say it's good. Is it great? No, in my opinion. I think it's just, it's good. It's watchable.

It's certainly not bad. And it's probably worth mentioning as well. We are two hardcore Formula One fans that are not easily pleased by any stretch, especially Tommy, right? It has to be a blockbuster in order. for it to be great. Well, to be fair, like, we all watch the season and invested in everything. And sometimes it's not made for us as such.

It's getting new people into the sport or maybe more casual fans. But there is a lot to enjoy, even for the people like us that lived every moment of the season and didn't miss a practice session, despite me wanting to miss practice sessions. And yeah, but for me, I think the honeymoon period maybe. for DTS worn off a little bit because it kind of like you say, is it going to get to the point where what else can they really do with it? Because season one, for example, it was so fresh and exciting because you'd never seen these things before.

You'd never seen. We didn't even know who Gunther Steiner was really, did we, in the first season? And then suddenly it's like, who's this guy that's swearing all the time? Oh, my God. This behind the scenes, Daniel Ricardo is so crazy off camera when you've seen that for five seasons is of course going to wear off. But overall, is it good? Yeah, it's good, but I wouldn't say any more than that. It satisfies the urge before we get into testing and the start of the season for sure. The next question is, how much of last season is overly dramatized or misrepresented? That comes in

from the lone sculler. I would say they've definitely cut down on the, misrepresentation side of things. I think there's always going to be drama associated with Drive to Survive and Netflix shows. So you know what you're going to get when you tune in to a Drive to Survive. But look, that's what, you know, that's what we expect. I think that they didn't hype up any stupid teammate rivalries. Like, for example, there's an episode around Yuki Sonoda. And they could have easily made Gazley and Sonoda the two fiercest rivals ever.

and they hate each other, but they didn't. They represented them exactly how they were, and it was amazing to see the bromance and that sort of stuff. So for me, there wasn't any really annoying moments where I'm like, this isn't correct. Of course, there are other moments which we'll talk about in some of the questions. But in terms of the actual overall storylines

and how they go about stuff, I don't feel like there was much that was really leading us down the wrong path. No, I think this will be a nice surprise for, maybe more regular F-1 fans that know the season inside out because that has been the biggest criticism of Drive to Survive, like you said, they could have gone in on. I think the most famous example is Carlos Sites and Lando Norris who were famously besties and they made them into like these rivals during the episode.

Ocon and Sonoda as well in the last season was such a weird rivalry that just was so pointless. Like why are they dramatizing that? And for me, the good thing, was. They just focused on the actual stories that happened. So, you know, Kevin Magnuson in Bahrain, that is a feel good story, him finishing P5. It's not like they were hyping up him finishing 17th in a race or like that ridiculous Mazapin episode in the last season when he just finished last and they were making it sound like it saved his drive. So I think fans will be very pleased to hear

that side of it has gone. There is one bit, I'd say, that I think. think was maybe misrepresented. I don't know if you're nodding and I don't know if we're going to agree on it. It's the Sergio Perez bit. That's what came to mind as soon as you were like, I don't think there was one. I was like, ah, yes. That was the only bit. And yeah, it was very odd that they did a Perez episode and it's all kind of about his

contracts and stuff. And they kind of made it sound like he had a bad start to the season when I'd argue it was the exact opposite. When he was this hyped driver in the championship fight and the whole narrative was kind of like Horner going, oh, he's under pressure. And there was, they obviously can't show everything, but they showed clips like Saudi Arabia where he goes over the line and forth and they go, oh, what a disappointing race. And it's like, well, he was on pole and he got screwed by a safety car and things like that. So that is one example. And I think to be fair to the

rest of it, I think it was very good at just focusing on the things that actually happened rather than making stuff out of nothing. And we might have, we might not have known this particular moment, being potentially misrepresented had we not seen Sergio Perez saying that he'd signed too early after the whole Monaco win, which obviously gave us the indication that this was signed previously to that. But yeah, you can, of course, make your own minds up from that. Another question is, are there a lot of out of context radio messages used? Now, this one is, I guess, kind of ties in with misrepresentation in some ways. Yes, I mean, the radio messages, look, we used to drive to survive antics.

They use radio messages from years gone by. They use all kinds of things to piece together the story. So as much as I know whenever a team radio message has been wrongly used and it irritates me slightly, I have an understanding that 90% of the people watching this potentially are at the very sort of, they just have a sort of a baseline. understanding of Formula One. They're not trying to appease us, the hard cause with these kinds of pieces of information, but they're using it to tie together the stories.

There's an incident and then one second later, the driver will say an F-bomb and that's not obviously what happened, but it adds to the drama and it adds to the overall entertainment. So yes, they are there and if it annoys you, it's going to annoy you again this season, but you just have to embrace it and be like, this is part of it. of the show. A lot of their breathing, whether they used it from a driver, but when say they'll, say they're like calm down and just like this, but I would, I would argue that it's actually a lot better than the previous series.

And I think the reason for that, from certainly the things I noticed, they've probably used, like the examples you're using as things like, yeah, dropping an F-bomb or maybe Fernando crosses the line piece six or something and they didn't say anything particularly great but to hype the story they use something from another thing where it's exciting but I don't think there's anything anywhere near as ridiculous as what we've seen in previous series now the one that always comes to mind of course is the Sebastian Vettor radio when him and Leclair had the tangle in Brazil and it got played for one literally the next season after so it wasn't even that year and that's the thing that got memed massively and taken out of context and made into this big meme.

So I personally didn't notice too much. I guess the only thing I noticed was, yeah, like they might use the odd scene as well from a different race just to make it look a bit less exciting. But overall, I would say it is 95% better than it was in terms of I felt like. They've definitely had a talking to and listen to the hardcore fans that are just roasting it for all these ridiculous things. Absolutely. And speaking of listening to people, and the next question is, did they listen to the complaints the drivers had? I guess that ties in with misrepresentation. So I would say, yes, they clearly have changed their direction slightly with that because they ran the risk of losing certain drivers from the series. of course, Max Vastappen being one of the big sort of drivers deciding to now take part in the series, I'm sure that is with the understanding that if he is going to be in it, he is represented properly.

And there's a clip that was going around from maybe last season or the season before of where Norris is actually watching that season and saying, well, that's not right. That's not why I said, etc, etc. So you need these key elements, these key players, the Norris is the Vestappans who have a reasonably big part in, this series, they need to be happy. Otherwise, they'll see no reason for them to be involved in this. So I would say yes, they have. Yeah, definitely. And I do wonder how much maybe less behind the scene stuff, for me, there wasn't as much sort of going into driver's houses and Good to Steiner's house. Well, that's standard, right. But I think in terms of the drivers, I wonder how much of that is like Lando saying that, you know, if he goes and agrees to this stuff,

are they going to take me completely out of context? And I feel like this whole season has maybe they've been very careful with it, hoping that they'll lure drivers back in maybe to do some more behind the scenes thing and know they're actually going to represent them well and not twist narratives and things like that. And that's the job that they have, right? It's not as if you can go, ah, well, it's a show. But they have to, they have to represent the drivers in the way in which they are. Otherwise, they're just creating a complete false narrative. And then all these new people coming into the sport are going to have preconceived ideas

of what these people are like or what these drivers are like when it could potentially not be true or accurate in any stretch. So it's an important role. The first series, they definitely villainise certain drivers and make some, they have like the good guys and the bad guys and things like that, don't they? whereas I personally just felt like they just gave respect to everyone, really. Well, everyone that they showed missed. Some people didn't turn out, but maybe we'll talk about that later.

We shall. We definitely will. Next question. Is it chronological this season or does every episode go team by team again? That's from Booker Agenda. It's the same as it always has been. But when I was actually watching this, I can kind of understand the way they do. do it. The more and more seasons I've gone through and watched it, it's obviously been like,

ah, we're going back to the same race again. I already know what's happened. And there are levels to it, I think. But at the same time, I don't know how they would actually cover every storyline if they didn't go back to certain races or to certain moments. There was one moment that was played far too many times. And it's actually the next question as well from Jellycat 21. Do Joe and Alfa Mayo get any attention this season? Yes, mainly him upside down to turn one at Silverstone because that was played, I think, at three separate occasions for three, I think three different episodes as well. We went back to Silverstone.

That was maybe a little bit too much because I was like, Silverstone again. And I think as well, there was, we saw what happened in Bahrain and then the next episode is Bahrain testing, stuff like that where it's almost a little bit too, too out of kilter that it doesn't make sense at all. But apart from that, I do, I kind of have the understanding now of why they do. it to get every storyline fit into 10 episodes. Yeah, I'm not one of these people that's like, oh my God, why are you doing it out of order? Because at the end of the day, it's not a season review.

They're focusing on certain stories. And I have absolutely no problem with them saying they're doing a Yuki Sonoda episode, for example, and they obviously will cover a couple of races and go to him in Japan because it's the same race. And then the next episode is about Red Bull. and they'll of course mention Japan again because they won the title there, for example. So that I have absolutely no problem with.

For me, however, I think the start just really wound me up a little bit. The only thing that's annoyed me about this season is what you mentioned about Silverstone because it's, I wouldn't mind if they'd maybe put these episodes in a different order, but the Silverstone episodes are two, three and four. So they cover one team in episode, episode two and the narrative kind of ends Silverstone as their like thing. Episode three, they go to another team.

It ends at Silverstone. Episode four, another team and driver. And it ends with their narrative sort of ending at Silverstone. And for me, it was bad enough for the episode three. So you've seen it the second time. But when we got to episode four and it's exactly the same start, exactly the same overhead shot of the grid, why they need to show the Joe crash again.

And that's the thing. It's three episodes on the bounce that they're essentially doing this hyped up Silverstone star and we know. And a lot of people do binge it in order. So that for me was the only bit where I was like, really? Come on. Like stick the Perez Monaco episode in a gap or something and just so we can cool down on Silverstone a bit. There's only so many times that that just feels.

really repetitive when you've seen it again. So for me, that was a really, really odd choice. Sorry, and one more thing about the show thing, they didn't even talk to him to answer that question from Jellicat. They show him bow rolling upside down. And then the only thing was they kind of got him in the chair for a little bit. He's like, hello, that was a scary crash, wasn't it? Yeah.

And they don't actually really go into him. So he's not really featured very much other than just him flying through the air, which is a shame. Maybe next season. Maybe next season they'll show. it again for another three episodes on the balance. Next question. On a scale of one to plan E, how much will the Ferrari episodes cause pain?

Well, they weren't fun to watch. This is a question for you. They weren't fun to watch Aoki Chuck. Reliving those, no, not fun at all, to be honest with you. It's interesting because you get little bits of insight, but I don't think a huge amount, again, as Tommy kind of alluded to, you don't get enough behind the scenes like drivers briefings and stuff like that,

you know, where they all sit in their little rooms and they have a briefing. That's the stuff that us F1 fans absolutely crave. And I just don't feel like there was enough of that again this year, where it is that behind the scenes nuggets of driver personalities and, you know, the Ferrari team maybe losing their minds or whatever. I don't feel like there was a huge amount of insight apart from just Bonotto, just being like we're making mistakes, which I found quite interesting that he was quite, he was almost a bit more honest with regards to speaking to the Netflix camera crews

and he was to the everyone else in the media. I was like, why are you telling that? Is it because you like, what's going on? But yes, they are painful if you're a Ferrari fan and I would just close your eyes. Yeah, they go on it quite a lot and the little good bits like you say, I've Drive to Survive where it is behind the scenes. Maybe shows kind of the other teams laughing at them a bit and sort of going in on them and showing that pressure of Ferrari,

which is really interesting. I guess for me, there's just not enough of that behind the scenes, I think. Almost part of me feels like some of the episodes could be shorter and maybe ditch so much of the onboards and things like that and just kind of just get straight on with the behind the scene stuff because that's what we're all here for.

Okay, next up, are there any new legendary Gunter Steiner moments? I would say so. Maybe not legendary. They're not going to take over the meme world, but you once again get more insight into Gunter Steiner's life. But I thought it was a good level of it. They utilize him being quite good entertainment, his pure unadulterated honesty. And I think it was just the right balance of Steiner shenan shenanigans. Yeah, I was worried it was going to be the Gunther Steiner show after the first, kind of, he's in the first episode and then there's one centered around House later. What I would say is if you're a Mick Schumacher fan watch with care, because he's very savage and there's some behind the scenes stuff there, that, eesh, shows a lot about their relationship. It does. No spoilers. You'll enjoy it very soon, I'm sure, when the,

I mean, we say no spoilers. You're here for a reason. to know bits and bobs, don't you? And that's why you're here. Hey-ho, let's carry on. How is the Danny Rick situation treated? Ooh. I mean, yeah, I suppose it kind of, does it shed much on the situation that we didn't know already? I don't think so, not particularly.

Not really, no. I can hear Frank wanting to get involved in the background as well. He's really got some strong opinion. on Drive to Survive. But, I mean, it gives you an insight into maybe his emotions and struggles slightly and how he was feeling at the time. At the end, you'll enjoy a nice little Danny Rick montage. But apart from that, I don't know.

I think it kind of represented it quite well in the sense of how it all went down. Yeah. I'd actually argue that's one of the best episodes, actually, the one that focuses on Daniel Ricardo and obviously the whole piastri thing it's a lot more interesting they obviously get quite good access to Daniel Ricardo so

naturally there's a bit more behind the scene stuff there but I think they handle it handle it well and respectfully because I wonder if this question is the fact that the episode title which no spoilers because F1 shared it is called nice guys finish last

I think it is yeah which is a very savage title and make it sound like it's going to be absolutely brutal to him, but it's not. It's not really. It's not. They looked after Danny Rick, and I think it's mainly as well because he's been one of the key people in Drive to Survive. And I imagine the producers are probably like, let's not be too horrible about him. Next question, what's Max like since his first time doing the show?

I wouldn't say he featured a huge amount, but he featured a little bit here and there, and he seemed quite forthcoming with his answers. But I wouldn't say he was a massive staple in the show particularly. No, not at all. You could tell they'd put him in the – because if you watch the trailer, it's kind of, oh, Max, you're the first time in the chair and they very much build it around. Oh, Max has chappens in this one because he's not been in any of them.

But it is very much he's there to do the talking head bits. There's not like an episode where it's all about Max's life and his story and he invites them into his home and all this kind of stuff. Sorry for Stauffin fans, but not getting that just. Not getting that just yet. You're hoping for a full 10 episode for Stappen special, aren't you? We'll wait for the 20th title for that one. But yeah, he's very much just like a talking head

that just pops up occasionally with like little bits of info and context. Yeah, but nothing really more than that. there wasn't there was nothing spicy coming out of the stagulls mouth unfortunately next question did they miss any particular moment of the year that is not showcased in the series one thing they didn't include which i'm absolutely fuming as a charlerc fan is the round the outside move on hamilton at cops not cops um yeah cops it is cops sorry cups yeah um didn't show it like they show through goes hamilton about 15 times but my god oh my god they didn't show charlesa around the outside.

So not happy about that. Also, one big thing, right? I know what's going. One big thing that if you're a Sebastian Vettel fan, you will not want to hear. He hardly features at all. Not even at the end. When he retires, it's about Daniel Ricardo leaving,

not him, which you will not be happy with. I'm so sorry to share this with you, but it's not a spoiler. It's the truth. and there's nothing to spoil. Vettel, I don't think he featured at all, really. No, particularly because the final episode is about Abu Dhabi, which it always is, and I was watching it feeling like

Abu Dhabi definitely have some kind of thing in their contract where it has to be all about that, because they don't mention Brazil at all. That as well, yeah, they had like a 10-second recap of it. 10-second thing of the Russell bit and a 10-second bit at the end about Magnuson's poll, when I'm not one of these people that cares too much about particular moments because at the end of the day it's a documentary and it's more about the behind the scenes and I can go watch whatever I want on YouTube

if I want to watch it. But Haas being literally the DTS thing, that is the best moment. They could well ever have in their entire history of the team. So the fact that they didn't do that. And yeah, Abu Dhabi, they kind of did this whole episode on Abu Dhabi when there wasn't really anything to play for, but didn't mention Seb, really, really bizarre that.

And yeah, to do a Danny Rick montage at the end and then not mention Sebastian Vettel when he's a four-time world champion a legend of the sport. They do obviously mention he's retiring a couple of times, but there's no feature on it or anything. That's very odd.

It's very odd. I can only assume he didn't want to be involved. Yeah, but I mean, he did sit down with them. And, you know, there are a couple of clips of him sitting down talking. They, of course, shared the Instagram video as well of him saying he's retiring. But you also made a really good point about the poll that Magnuson had. There's plenty of moments about Hasse trying to do well. And Magnuson sticks it on pole in Brazil and there's nothing.

Very strange. They must have just not filmed anything that particular weekend with the team. But yeah, those were a big few moments, you'd say. It's not really any Aston, actually. I wonder if they weren't maybe, I wonder if they just didn't have as much access or they weren't maybe Lawrence Stroll didn't like how I was perceived in the previous series and didn't want to be involved in it anymore, who knows?

Who knows? Next question. What's the best episode? Oh, that's a good question. I quite enjoy episode five around 10 minutes in. I don't know exactly why. It might be something. So check that out once you listen in and watch in.

But actually, to be fair, I think the whole Piastri thing was I found the most interesting and certain conversations between the team principals and things like that. That's probably going to be my favorite episode. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's definitely the best one of the series. I'd argue there's not like it was really good. It wasn't like mind-blowing. I think there's been some really incredible.

incredible episodes that really stand out in the past series of Drive to Survive, like the Grosjean episode or, you know, the Mercedes episode in Hockenheim, for example, where there's that one episode that everyone's really excited for. I'd argue this season maybe there's not so many like standout episodes. It's all just like decent and good. But yeah, the Piastri one is definitely, I think, again, you'll know what we like because it's more behind the scenes. They don't really mention,

I don't really show any, any racing or any on track stuff. It's kind of, I'd say five and six almost merge into each other or that whole storyline of who gets to see the contracts and all that kind of stuff, which is good because it needs a double episode because it is the perfect drive to survive storyline,

isn't it, at the end of the day, drama and contract disputes and all that kind of stuff. Certainly is. So I hope you enjoy that one when Drive to Survive drops on Friday. isn't it? Is it a Friday it's coming out? Yeah. Yes.

Fantastic. So I hope you guys enjoy that. Our final question is our rating out of 10. I am going to rate, drive to survive, season 5, a 7 out of 10. I think that it's a good baseline of episodes throughout. It's an enjoyable watch as a Formula 1 fan, as Tommy kind of alluded to. There isn't anything that just explodes your mind. There's maybe, for me, from a personal standpoint, not enough.

behind the scenes, not enough snippets and, you know, these things that us hardcore, if one fans, want to see as much of. But I can also understand that they are also trying to appease to the newer audience that are still learning about the driver's personalities and so on. So it's a seven out of 10, an enjoyable watch. And I think that it will quench the first before the first race of the season next weekend. Yeah. I'm going to go six out of 10. It's similar to you, really. Just I think that maybe missing, maybe just missing something, maybe more, yeah, behind the scenes and stuff like that. And the fact that we've had a lot of drive to survive seasons now, maybe, I don't know

whether they could introduce something new because it does feel like it's very samey. You kind of know what episodes are coming and how it's going to be framed. But there's still some really good stuff and there'll be a lot to talk about. we're not even mentioned a particularly sort of heated spicy bit with Horner and Toto, who were obviously the stars of it last season. And there'll be little things like that that I'm sure will come out and people will be excited. But that's, you know, we binge watched it in six hours. And the actual bits that were like super exciting probably is about half an hour's worth

maybe. So it sounds more service than it is. Tommy's just feeling grumpy. six out of ten from him, seven out of ten from me. And I'm sure you guys will enjoy it all the same. Exactly. Tom is just really hard to please everyone, all right? So cool, we'll see you very soon for another podcast or video wherever you are enjoying

this content. And leave us a five-star review if you are on audio and we will read it out next time in our podcast. And we'll see you very soon. Enjoy testing. We're going to be live from, well, it'd probably be like when this goes out, maybe like five hours time, six hours time potentially. for testing. So come join us, Matt P1, Tommy on Twitch for all the testing stuff and also we're making some content over on YouTube. So we'll see you very soon. Bye. Bye.

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