No, Formula 1 Drive to Survive style shows aren’t a fix all!

I hear, far too much, that “<insert favourite motorsport> just needs a Drive to Survive show and it’ll become popular like F1”. I just don’t think that’s the case.

Drive to Survive is lightning in a bottle that can’t reliably be replicated across other motorsports. I believe that there’s a misunderstanding about its success as a show. While it has been credited with bringing new fans to F1, a large portion of its early success was due to the huge latent demand for behind-the-scenes content from existing fans. It drew upon the already vast fan base to drive the early viewing intrigue before new fans started taking notice. F1 wasn’t some niche sport before DTS with a small following. It had a huge global following.

Of course behind-the-scenes documentaries aren’t a new thing in F1. There’s been many throughout the years. They were often rather dry affairs, fascinating, but dry. I loved them, but they are never going to happen again as they often reveal far too much technical content that wouldn’t be allowed from the teams nowadays. Drive to Survive managed to change the formula and add some spice into the mix, much to the annoyance of purists like myself who baulked at its rather liberal use of the creative licence.?

One of the forgotten aspects to DTS was the first series didn’t include the title contenders Ferrari and Mercedes, who were understandably reluctant to have cameras in their garages. This meant the producers had to ‘find’ stories elsewhere. This use of creative licence was mostly born out of necessity because without the title fight to follow they had to get stories from somewhere. It has become such an issue however that even Max Verstappen boycotted the series in 2021 because he felt he was not represented fairly by the series.

These weird facts about DTS only serve to murky the water in understanding its success. It’s very difficult to replicate. We have had the world championship battle missing from the first series, we have it mocked by the fan base for its rather large use of the creative licence, we also have the world champion boycotting it in 2021. This isn’t a ‘plug-in-play’ option for marketing teams outside of F1. No one suggests not having the title fight in the first series of their suggested replica, but it was a key ingredient to DTS’s initial success.

MotoGP, in a desperate attempt to counter the effect of Rossi leaving, did create their own Amazon Prime series. But whatever that was called (yes, I have forgotten already), didn’t have a large latent demand in the fan base to help give it traction. Unlike Netflix, anyone can upload their content to Amazon, so being on Prime isn’t really an equivalent unless you have Amazon investing in the project. Either way the show was a flop. What DTS did for the F1 fanbase (make the drivers more characters than they’d ever been), MotoGP had already been here and done that. MotoGP was way ahead of the game there, or well, Rossi was. He understood narratives. He was a story-teller as much as a racer.

See, this is the kicker. When you consider what Drive to Survive offers the fan base, a lot of other motorsport series already have done it, sometimes unknowingly. The behind the scenes stuff we are already familiar with. Take dirt bikes for example. Several riders have excellent Youtube channels. The sport has multiple documentaries like the Moto series of films that show off the sport and characters in a spectacular fashion. DTS isn’t exactly original. I always chuckle when I see dirt bikers wishing for a DTS style documentary, when the reality is they have a substantial amount of content to consume that delivers everything DTS does, but more.

So where does that leave other motorsport series clambering for some marketing success and cultural relevance? Well, it’s very tricky. The thing about Drive to Survive and F1 in general is that it has consumed such a large number of people that it isn’t leaving much room for anything else. F1 has 24 races per season now with the addition of sprint races at several events. That’s 50% of the year’s weekends that require a relatively decent time investment from the viewer. F1 is growing into an all consuming monster that really isn’t leaving much for anyone else. It’s basic Pareto Distribution stuff. You only have to look at IndyCar’s numbers on their Youtube channel to see the gulf in popularity between F1 and everything else.

I do believe F1’s structure is more conducive to being an addictive series to follow. 10 teams building their own cars bakes in a level of intrigue you just don’t get elsewhere. It’s one of the many factors that contribute to its success. So if you are another series, no DTS style documentary will magically fix your problems. If anything it makes whatever championship that tries to copy it look desperate and out of touch. Even Drive to Survive itself is starting to look terribly dated. Apart from the odd moment that gives in a unique insight into something, the series itself is starting to run out of steam. F1’s recent gains might be a bubble waiting to burst for all we know.

With F1 dominating the landscape right now, I do feel for other series trying their best to garner some attention. I think MotoGP is making a mistake with their sprints because it’s asking more from its viewers, many of whom aren’t bikers and are more susceptible to choosing F1 because it’s what everyone else is watching. So when you look at your time investment, it’s either F1 or MotoGP, and F1 will win most of the time. Without Rossi they do seem to be flailing about a bit with no direction.

I don’t have the answers, but I know a DTS style series isn’t an automatic recipe for success. A unique set of ingredients contributed to the very specific success of it, not least Netflix’s huge backing. But what it has done is allow F1 to assert its dominance within the motorsport scene that won’t have gone unnoticed. Series like BTCC won’t be able to rely upon ‘car culture’ much longer as road car offerings homogenise. MotoGP can’t rely upon ‘biker culture’ for much longer either as sports bike sales continue to tank. They have to carve out their place in the general motorsport audience before F1 just takes it all. This will take unique ideas, and new people. Following F1’s lead will only lead to irrelevance.