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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has joined Lewis Hamilton in branding Formula One the ‘Kardashians on wheels’ as a result of the influence of Netflix’s hugely popular Drive to Survive documentary series. The show has played an integral role in expanding the sport’s worldwide reach, particularly in the United States due to F1 owners Liberty Media continuing their efforts to tap into the American market.

The series has been praised for offering a behind-the-scenes insight into the world of F1 and helping new fans to understand the basics of the sport, although many have criticised its tendency to blow things out of proportion and create dramatic storylines by exaggerating or even twisting the truth.

Hamilton was the first to make the Kardashian comparison last year shortly after Red Bull were found to have breached the FIA’s strict financial rules, with the 38-year-old saying: “I mean, it feels like a bit of a Kardashian show happening here, it’s pretty hilarious, some of the stuff that I’ve heard over the past few days has been so entertaining. I’m sure it’ll all be on Netflix, it’s going to be great.”

Horner has since echoed Hamilton’s comments by crediting Drive to Survive with sparking a Kardashian-like dynamic when quizzed on the topic of Netflix’s involvement in F1 during an interview with the Financial Times.

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“I mean, we are now the Kardashians on wheels,” said the Red Bull chief. “I mean, you’re just looking for Guenther Steiner to lose it, or for my friend Toto [Wolff] and I to have a little bit of jousting. It gets you behind the scenes to know the personalities of the drivers a little more and exposes the characters, and it’s not just about the front of the field.

“It’s about the trials and tribulations that go on down the grid, at the back of the grid, what they’re fighting for, so I think that’s the dynamic that has completely changed, and F1, to a degree, it is a bit of a soap opera. I mean the way it operates, the characters involved, the money involved, the politics.”

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It comes after Horner admitted that Red Bull have previously vetoed scenes from appearing on Drive to Survive, with staff having the power to block certain moments from airing in order to protect valuable team secrets.

“What you’ve got to remember is that it’s a TV show, they capture hours and hours of content,” said Horner. “The problem is they put a microphone on you at the beginning of the day and you forget that they’re there, then you get to the end of the season and they tend to send you the clips of just you and your team.

“You think: ‘Did I really say that? Did I really call someone a ‘See You Next Tuesday’?’ We can say: ‘You can’t put that in there, there’s a part of the car you can’t show’. That’s the only get out of jail card we have.”

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