The three-time world champion is rarely mentioned in season 6 of Formula One: Drive to Survive on Netflix, despite his numerous victories in 2023. A narrative choice which questions, but which seems logical given the history between Max Verstappen and the series.
Fans eagerly awaited the return of Formula One: Drive to Survive, the documentary series which reveals behind the scenes of the most scrutinized motorsport in the world: Formula 1. Season 6, still full of thrills, has been on Netflix since February 23. With one absent.
Because this year, like the two previous seasons, one name is missing: that of Max Verstappen, triple world champion, who nevertheless won 19 races last year. So why is the Dutchman so little mentioned in front of the cameras? Formula One: Drive to Survive ?
But where is Max?
World champion, winner of 19 races out of 22, and even the first driver in history to win 10 consecutive races: Max Verstappen literally rode the year 2023 and his opponents. The headliner of the Red Bull team should therefore have been the main protagonist of season 6 of Formula One: Drive to Survive. But when the content of these 10 new episodes was revealed, surprise: almost no trace of the Dutchman on the horizon.
To understand this absence, despite a remarkable record, we have to go back in time. At the beginning of the series Formula One: Drive to Survive, in 2019, drivers and team directors happily answered questions from documentarians, allowing us to discover behind the scenes of a universe that was then rather opaque. Max Verstappen was no exception to the rule, notably evoking his rivalry with his teammate at the time at Red Bull, Daniel Ricciardo.
But in 2022, for the release of season 4, everything changes: the champion is really not happy, and he lets Netflix know. During filming, he refused to give his impressions of the competition on camera. No more intimate confessions, and hello hostilities.
Max Verstappen denounced the unfortunate tendency towards dramatization shown in the series. Near The Associated Presshe accused the documentary of having “invented a lot of things” and to have “created rivalries that don’t really exist”.
The pilot, already not very talkative with the media, had therefore stopped any interview with the Netflix production, affirming that he would not “wouldn’t change my mind” on the series. If Formula One: Drive to Survive could still use footage from the races, so she no longer had access to exclusive interviews.
Finally, Max Verstappen spoke a little too quickly, since he finally showed his confidence again, making a brief return in season 5, before turning his jacket around again. Season 6 will therefore still not be that of reconciliation.
In these 10 new episodes, his multiple successes are barely highlighted, leaving all the spotlight to two ultimate fan favorites: Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton. The latter had already denounced the aggressive behavior of the Red Bull driver on the circuits.
And then, let’s admit it: it’s still less exciting to recount the umpteenth successes of Max Verstappen, who dominated the 2023 season without problem, than to follow the stratagems of Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Aston Martin to win the second place.
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