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 \u2013 including almost 80 episodes of Drive to Survive sitting on Netflix waiting to be watched again.<\/p>\n
Just before the summer break, F1.com sat down with the award-winning show\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Scroll down to see his choices and to relive the footage\u2026<\/p>\n
Boiling Point (Season 2, Episode 2) \u2013 Steiner makes his mark<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was Guenther Steiner<\/a> and the \u2018**** slam my door\u2019 moment, when he completely loses the plot. I think it\u2019s the perfect distillation of Guenther in Drive to Survive. The episode title, Boiling Point, comes from a great moment where he\u2019s in his apartment with his wife, they\u2019re 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\u2019s a great, detailed moment, where that scene reflects the kind of pressure that he\u2019s under in his job at that moment.<\/p>\n \u201cGuenther is great, really great, and he was a very important character for us. He claims that he doesn\u2019t watch the show, or that he\u2019s never watched the show. I do actually believe that he hasn\u2019t watched it, because I don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Dark Days (Season 2, Episode 4) \u2013 Mercedes\u2019 home nightmare<\/p>\n \u201cAfter Mercedes<\/a> 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<\/a>, where they had their worst race result in living memory, and they were all in fancy dress. I think as an episode, it\u2019s really fascinating, because Mercedes let us continue filming \u2013 they didn\u2019t shut the door, they didn\u2019t try and back out of it. Even though it was a disaster, instead of saying, \u2018Actually, we\u2019ll give you another race\u2019, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Blood, Sweat & Tears (Season 2, Episode 9) \u2013 Williams\u2019 pre-season struggles<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the story of Williams<\/a> when they didn\u2019t make it to the start of pre-season testing in 2019. I think it\u2019s 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\u2019s creation. We shot some great stuff back at the factory.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing it in F1 again this year. If look at the effort that\u2019s gone into the car at Aston Martin<\/a> \u2013 it\u2019s really encouraging to see them make a step forward in Hungary \u2013 and obviously Williams have been struggling. There are challenges up and down the grid. It\u2019s an absolutely enormous team effort, and it\u2019s particularly prevalent in these episodes where we are able to go to a factory and see the work being done.\u201d<\/p>\n Man On Fire (Season 3, Episode 9) \u2013 Grosjean\u2019s terrifying accident<\/p>\n \u201cMan on Fire is obviously well remembered for Romain Grosjean<\/a>\u2019s crash, but I think people forget that when the race resumed, it was the story of Checo [Perez]<\/a> 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 \u2013 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\u2019s the only time we\u2019ve ever had two people sit in the chair at the same time. Also, it\u2019s the episode that won us our first Emmy. The show has won two Emmys now<\/a>, and the first one was based on that episode.\u201d<\/p>\n In The Heat of The Night (Season 7, Episode 7) \u2013 The drivers take over<\/p>\n \u201cThis 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody 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\u2019s actually quite lonely, and the drivers that have partners, so George Russell<\/a>\u2019s 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\u2019re constantly busy and they\u2019re being pulled all over the place, it\u2019s not the same as hanging out with friends or having a private moment with friends and family or whatever. It\u2019s quite a solitary existence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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\u2019s 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\u2019t have got access to.\u201d<\/p>\n