Red Bull has blocked Drive To Survive footage
Christian Horner explained why he had blocked the images from the Netflix series about the backstage of his team.
The documentary series “Drive to Survive” has played an essential role in the explosive growth of F1 since its first airing in 2018. Broadcasted on Netflix, the cameras take us behind the scenes of the paddock. The attractiveness of this series lies in the absence of censorship regarding the occasionally colorful language used by the paddock staff.
However, Christian Horner recently revealed that he had been forced to prevent the producers from using certain footage as it would have infringed on Red Bull’s intellectual property rights. Horner disclosed that a crucial sector of the Red Bull Formula 1 team had led him to block parts of the series.
« The problem is that they put a microphone on your head at the beginning of the day and the cameras are integrated into the team. There are so many cameras that we no longer know which ones are from Netflix or someone else and we forget they’re there. Then we get to the end of the season, the end of the year, and they tend to send you clips they have of your team. That’s when you think, «You can’t put that, it’s a part of our car,» and it’s the only get-out-of-jail-free card we have, that there is a technical intellectual property that we don’t want them to see. »
Christian Horner also expressed his regret that the attention given to Formula 1 by the showbiz and celebrities in recent years resembles a “Kardashian show”. “With the audience we have attracted, we are now the Kardashians on wheels,” stated Horner. “In fact, you are just seeking to see Günther Steiner go off the rails, or my friend Toto [Wolff] and I engage in a little banter – but it allows you to get to know the drivers’ personalities behind the scenes, to put faces to the names, and to expose the characters.”
« It’s not just about the front of the pack, but also about the trials and tribulations, about how things unfolded at the back of the grid, about what they do and what they fight for. This dynamic has completely changed what Formula 1 is to some extent, it’s a bit of a soap opera – the way it operates, the characters involved, the money, the politics. »
The shooting of the sixth season is currently underway and will focus on the 2023 season.
