The 2022 season was more exciting off the track than on
The fifth season of the hit Netflix series Formula One: Drive to Survive will be made available on the streaming service on Friday this week, once again providing a behind-the-scenes look at the sport that it has helped to totally revitalise.
Providing extraordinary access to both drivers and team principals, the series takes viewers into the pit garages and boardrooms revealing the struggles and rivalries taking place on and off track within the sport, which has seen a huge surge in popularity in recent years, especially in the important North American market.
While the 2022 F1 season showed some initial promise of neck-and-neck racing with the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz demonstrating pace to match the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, consistent tactical blundering on the part of Ferrari and its now-departed team principal, Matteo Binotto, handed Verstappen and Red Bull a total dominance that produced few memorable moments throughout the 23 Grands Prix.
An enormous crash by Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone — from which he thankfully walked away unharmed — and a breathtakingly competent drive by Verstappen at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa that saw the World Champion win after starting 14th on the grid represented the two most notable on-track moments of the season.
Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton, who having been narrowly pipped to the World Championship in the final race of 2021 season and who had been expected to have been out for blood, rarely troubled the leaders, despite some fine performances from Hamilton and his new teammate, George Russell.
The team struggled to make their car truly competitive under the new aerodynamic regulations brought in for the 2022 season, lacking straight-line pace and the same ability to exploit “ground effect” as the top teams. It was plagued by “porpoising” (bouncing at speed), especially during the early season.
While the racing action may not have been particularly thrilling in 2022, what happened off track was another story and one into which Drive to Survive will take a deep dive.
The first of the year’s dramas occurred at Haas which, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was forced to drop its biggest sponsor, Uralkali.
The fertiliser firm is owned by one of Russian premier Vladimir Putin’s cronies, the sanctioned billionaire Dmitry Mazepin. Unluckily for the team, Mazepin’s son, Nikita, was also one of Haas’ two drivers, which meant that just prior to the start of the season the team was down both a sponsor and a driver.
The move led Haas to take on Dane Kevin Magnusson who proved a consistently strong performer in 2022 and brought some respect back to the Ferrari-powered team that had been the laughing stock of the grid in 2021.
At Mercedes, the relationship between Hamilton and Russell has, thus far, proven relatively convivial, though with the young challenger consistently finishing higher than the seven-time world champion in 2022, could Season 5 of Drive of Survive reveal cracks within the team and a cooling of relationships between the two drivers and team boss, Toto Wolff?
The driver line-up for 2023 reveals that at other teams too, driver and constructor relationships began to fracture in the crucible of racing in 2022.
After a disappointing few years, the ever-sunny Daniel Ricciardo was forced out of McLaren during 2022, in favour of fellow Aussie, Oscar Piastri, a move that was controversial enough in itself.
However when Alpine announced on Twitter that Piastri would be replacing veteran Fernando Alonso at the French team for 2023, it made the call before any deal had been signed and a firm denial from Piastri on Twitter suggested he was actually tied to another team. A huge social media kerfuffle and a court case confirmed the McLaren deal.
It was a real case of musical chairs all round — Alonso was eventually replaced at Alpine by AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly, while the Spaniard has gone to Aston Martin for 2023 to take the place of the retiring Sebastian Vettel. Gasly’s place at AlphaTauri has been taken by Dutch driver Nyck de Vries, who made an impressive debut at Monza for Williams in 2022 and so should feature in Drive to Survive S5.
Meanwhile Nicholas Latifi, who became know for crashes as much as poor luck, departed Williams, with another North American, Logan Sargeant, jumping into his seat.
And despite a few grimly determined drives in 2022, Mick Schumacher was let go from Haas; Nico Hulkenberg once again returns as a full-time F1 driver in 2023.
So the new season of Drive to Survive (10 episodes at 45 minutes apiece) will explore not just the racing but one of the biggest shake-ups of the grid in years, with the personality clashes within the pressure cooker of F1 creating as much drama as a scripted TV show ever could.
The series goes live on Netflix on Friday (February 24).
- After reading about the new season of Drive to Survive, make sure you catch up with our guide to the 2023 F1 season
- Ford’s F1 return: Partnership with Red Bull Racing confirmed ahead of 2026 season
- F1 2022 race reports: the action as it happened
Keyword: F1: Drive to Survive season 5 preview — what to expect as Netflix show goes behind the scenes of 2022 championship