For those involved with Netflix’s Drive to Survive, it is not news that the series has attracted immense backlash and controversy for manufacturing storylines. Among the numerous dissenters within the show, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff stands out for being ardently critical of the show’s misgivings on multiple public platforms and media interviews.
Wolff’s animosity toward the show has been so deep-seated that despite being a part of it, the Mercedes boss has never been able to keep his criticisms at bay. Nevertheless, with time, he warmed up to the idea of being a part of the series that not only exposed Formula One to the world but made the sport and its drivers more accessible to the audience.
Toto Wolff refused to partake in Drive to Survive S01
The first season of Netflix’s Drive to Survive documented the 2018 Grand Prix. At the time, Mercedes and Ferrari were warring for both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ World Championship titles. Tension ran high and there was too much at stake for either party to be distracted by a looming camera crew.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff had this exact reason for refusing to be a part of the Netflix series in its debut season. The rival team, Ferrari, also shared the same opinion. When asked about it during an appearance on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Wolff revealed:
I didn’t want all of my people to be distracted by a camera and then suddenly perform “good” and [behave supercicially in front of the cameras]…
Wolff’s fears were rooted in reality and he made the right call in keeping his team away from the spotlight for that first season. But as 2019 rolled along, the Austrian opened up the Mercedes paddock to the Netflix crew’s all-seeing camera crew. He later credited the visibility and popularity that F1 received from Drive to Survive behind counting toward that later decision.
Toto Wolff contends with the falsities of DTS
When Drive to Survive launched in the early days of the Covid pandemic, the series was all but set to make F1 into a global phenomenon. Motorsports racing was, for once, an object of fascination that transcended boundaries and united people from all corners of the world under a single umbrella. But as the saying goes – if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
The series was found to use mismatched audio and video clips to antagonize a situation, additional sound effects to heighten on-track action, and misleading editing made it impossible to decipher fact from fiction. And yet, the fans lived for the drama.
The Mercedes team principal understood the cost of putting himself and his team under the spotlight, saying:
It’s scary how much we let them in. You hate to see yourself in there. They create a spin to the narrative – they put scenes together that didn’t happen. 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.
Wolff also spoke about how the series has opened up a whole new demography for the “niche, high-tech, high-income demographic” sport. He acknowledged 15-35-year-olds as being the key consumer market for driving the audience and reach due to their social media influence since, in his words, “they are the future decision-makers.” (via Independent)
Drive to Survive Season 7 is set to premiere on Netflix on 7 March 2025.
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