F1 fans need to wait a little bit longer for racing action to return in 2026, but thankfully there is plenty to keep you occupied until then – including almost 80 episodes of Drive to Survive sitting on Netflix waiting to be watched again.
Just before the summer break, F1.com sat down with the award-winning show’s Co-Executive Producer, Tom Rogers, and tasked him with choosing some of his standout episodes from the eight seasons that have been released so far.
Scroll down to see his choices and to relive the footage…
Boiling Point (Season 2, Episode 2) – Steiner makes his mark
“This was Guenther Steiner and the ‘**** slam my door’ moment, when he completely loses the plot. I think it’s the perfect distillation of Guenther in Drive to Survive. The episode title, Boiling Point, comes from a great moment where he’s in his apartment with his wife, they’re cooking pasta, and the pan keeps bubbling away. The lid is rattling, and he just keeps putting his hand on it to try to stop it from rattling. It’s a great, detailed moment, where that scene reflects the kind of pressure that he’s under in his job at that moment.
“Guenther is great, really great, and he was a very important character for us. He claims that he doesn’t watch the show, or that he’s never watched the show. I do actually believe that he hasn’t watched it, because I don’t think he changed over the years he was in the show. I think we got a very authentic version of Guenther, and what you saw is what you get. Some of the most iconic Drive to Survive quotes, if you like, have come from Guenther.”
Dark Days (Season 2, Episode 4) – Mercedes’ home nightmare
“After Mercedes decided not to take part in Season 1, they then agreed to take part in Season 2 on the provision that we filmed at one race. That was Hockenheim 2019, where they had their worst race result in living memory, and they were all in fancy dress. I think as an episode, it’s really fascinating, because Mercedes let us continue filming – they didn’t shut the door, they didn’t try and back out of it. Even though it was a disaster, instead of saying, ‘Actually, we’ll give you another race’, they stayed true to it and let us tell that story, which I thought was really brave of them. It made for a great episode.”
Blood, Sweat & Tears (Season 2, Episode 9) – Williams’ pre-season struggles
“This is the story of Williams when they didn’t make it to the start of pre-season testing in 2019. I think it’s interesting because it shows the challenge of new regulations, and how many different parts of a team have to pull together to deliver a car on track. Hundreds of people are putting their, as the episode title suggests, blood, sweat, and tears into the car’s creation. We shot some great stuff back at the factory.
“We’re seeing it in F1 again this year. If look at the effort that’s gone into the car at Aston Martin – it’s really encouraging to see them make a step forward in Hungary – and obviously Williams have been struggling. There are challenges up and down the grid. It’s an absolutely enormous team effort, and it’s particularly prevalent in these episodes where we are able to go to a factory and see the work being done.”
Man On Fire (Season 3, Episode 9) – Grosjean’s terrifying accident
“Man on Fire is obviously well remembered for Romain Grosjean’s crash, but I think people forget that when the race resumed, it was the story of Checo [Perez] coming from last place to win the Grand Prix for Racing Point, which was an unbelievable racing story. So, that episode to me sort of had everything – the drama of the Grosjean crash and this incredible race afterwards. Romain and his wife both then sat in the Netflix chair, which again is unique, because it’s the only time we’ve ever had two people sit in the chair at the same time. Also, it’s the episode that won us our first Emmy. The show has won two Emmys now, and the first one was based on that episode.”
In The Heat of The Night (Season 7, Episode 7) – The drivers take over
“This is where the drivers shot some of their own content, doing a lot of user-generated, self-shot stuff. I think people really enjoyed seeing that slightly more personal side of the drivers, where it’s not us filming it. You get a little bit more of an honest, personal video diary kind of edge to it. It was quite a nice, fresh episode, and the feedback was really positive. I think the key with Drive to Survive is, the more the teams and the drivers buy into it and the more they let us in, the better the eventual show is going to be. The fans are always going to get a much better experience the more that the drivers and teams let us in.
“Nobody had really seen that side of a race weekend before, the day-to-day of staying in hotels and being away from friends and family all the time. I think the thing that struck me most is that it’s actually quite lonely, and the drivers that have partners, so George Russell’s partner, Carmen, being there, you can see how important it is to him, because that helps him achieve some sort of normality over a race weekend. Although these guys are swamped by fans, they’re constantly busy and they’re being pulled all over the place, it’s not the same as hanging out with friends or having a private moment with friends and family or whatever. It’s quite a solitary existence.
“The reality is we could have probably done about five of those Singapore episodes with the content that got generated over the weekend, because the drivers had really got into it. There’s some great stuff that never made it into the final cut. Those drivers and those teams that supported the making of that episode, I think they did a real service to the fans as well, because it lets the fans in on a moment that they otherwise wouldn’t have got access to.”
Want to watch more of Drive to Survive? Click here to access every episode.