Lewis Hamilton’s boss Toto Wolff explains what he ‘hates’ about Netflix’s Drive to Survive

Lewis Hamilton refuses to let 2021 season ‘define’ his career

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Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has revealed he “hates” seeing himself in the spotlight on Netflix’s Drive to Survive and has claimed the programme creates a “spin to the narrative”. A fourth series of the popular documentary is set to air later this week.

Drive to Survive has been a huge hit for Netflix since the first series was aired in 2019.

The show brings fans closer to the big personalities in F1, including Wolff, and has followed every season since 2018.

But the Mercedes chief has claimed the programme makes the most of its poetic licence.

“It’s scary how much we let them in,” Wolff admitted. “You hate to see yourself in there.

“They create a spin to the narrative – they put scenes together that didn’t happen.

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“I guess you’d say as an insider, ‘well that’s different than how it was.’ But we’re creating entertainment, and that is a new dimension of entertainment.”

Drive to Survive has been credited with taking F1 to a younger audience and growing its reach across the world.

And Wolff admits the publicity generated from the show can only be a good thing for the sport.

“Bernie Ecclestone would say, ‘I’m not interested in the 15-35 [year-olds] because they are not buying Rolexes from my sponsor,” Wolff continued.

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“But obviously that has changed because, with social media, this is the demographic that’s driving the audiences, that’s driving the reach – and they are the future decision-makers.

“Formula One, from our perspective, always was a global sport – big in Europe, big in South America, big in Asia and in the Middle East.

“In a way, we never accessed or excited the American audiences. My theory, back in the day, was that it takes a long time for a sports league to establish itself in a country.

“Formula One is a niche sport – it’s a high-tech, high-income demographic, high-academic education.

“I thought it must be easier to tap the audiences in the big cities, like New York, but we really never got there.

“Then Liberty took over, didn’t move the needle really. And then Netflix came, Covid came and people started to binge-watch.

“And then suddenly we have this huge momentum now in the US that nobody had expected.”

The new series of Drive to Survive will give viewers a behind-the-scenes account of how the 2021 season played out as Hamilton missed out on a record eighth championship following controversy at the final Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi.

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