Will F1 lose its Netflix innocence?

The Netflix show 'Drive to Survive' has been a big win for Formula 1. Launched just before the start of the 2019 season, it has proved to be popular with fans old and new. Crucially, it's also been mostly well received in the paddock.

A clear sign of that success is that filming for series two is already underway, though official confirmation of an extended deal has not yet been forthcoming. In anticipation of an agreement being signed, production company Box to Box has been busy gathering footage at Barcelona testing and at the three races held so far in 2019.

But one big question is yet to be answered - will Ferrari and/or Mercedes Grand Prix be active participants this time around, having opted out in 2018?

No official viewing figures are available from Netflix. The streaming giant doesn't routinely release such data, although in December it drip fed some info on its biggest movies and drama series, via a fourth-quarter financial report.

That means relying on word of mouth and the response on social media to judge the reach and impact of the F1 series. In general, it's been good news.

"I've heard mixed reviews," says Lewis Hamilton, who features only in generic paddock and race coverage. "The majority I think have been positive. So far I can imagine it's been good for the sport, for people that don't understand it, and don't understand why you would watch a Formula 1 grand prix.

"I hope that, even though I haven't seen it, they keep pushing it, and I look forward to series two and all those things that continue on."

"I think the most important feedback is either from potential fans that weren't fans before, or lapsed fans," says Racing Point team principal Otmar Szafnauer. "If it helped get them back into the sport it's good not just for Liberty, but for all of us, and we should support that. Especially if you can get a few more fans in, who will be fans for their lifetime, you can imagine that's a good thing.

"One thing that encouraged me the most was when I heard people say, 'My seven-or-eight-year old watched it and enjoyed it, and now they're interested in F1'. That I think is the key, even though Bernie used to say, 'I don't care about the young guys, I care about the guys who can buy a Rolex, and who are 70.'

Coinciding with the launch of Drive to Survive, Netflix added 9.5m subscriptions worldwide, for a total of 149m. That's a huge potential audience

"If Netflix exposes the sport to more seven-year olds, and you get them in, that's what it's about. Especially now, because a seven, eight, nine or 10-year old has so much choice. Back in the seventies it was go to the races with my dad, or go to church with my mum. But now you've got so much choice! So to me, that's positive."

That potential to attract new, young fans - though the sometimes colourful language employed by drivers and team members probably makes their parents wince - is the real achievement of the series.

"The buzz has been extraordinary," says F1's commercial boss Sean Bratches. "When I was a kid I used to have to write book reports. Apparently teachers are now having kids write Netflix reports!

"I heard from the mother of a 13-year-old girl who wasn't a fan, watched it, and wrote a report, and now she's hooked. We see it as a path to unfold this extraordinary spectacle to fans around the world. And Netflix, it seems like a perfect marriage between our global sport and their global platform."

Liberty hasn't always got things right since it took control of F1 early in 2017, but the new management deserves credit for pulling off the Netflix deal. Bratches and his colleague Chase Carey both have extensive broadcasting backgrounds, and in this case, their contact books proved invaluable.

"I reached out to Netflix," Bratches explains. "A gentleman who used to work with me at ESPN was there. Effectively it was an outgrowth of the global brand study that we did in 2017.

"When I arrived, not only was there not a research department, but there wasn't any research. We really didn't understand how fans felt about the brand, what moved them, what were the emotive reasons for being engaged from a fandom standpoint.

"I engaged Wieden+Kennedy, my agency of record at ESPN. We had to move quickly, because we had a lot to do. We went to four continents, we talked to 10 avid fans on each continent, and we came out with these five pillars - 'revel in the racing', 'breaking borders', 'putting the spectacular back into the spectacle', 'taste the oil', and 'feel the blood boil'.

"There were two things that really came out of it. One was the fans' perception that F1 was this impenetrably exclusive sport. The other, in terms of 'feel the blood boil', was wanting to know more about the athletes - we're trying to take the helmet off and tell the stories behind the athletes. This seemed to me to be an ideal marketing platform for the sport."

There were alternative paths, but Netflix made sense for Bratches, thanks to its global reach. And since the F1 deal was signed, its subscriber base has grown significantly. In January to March 2019 alone, coinciding with the launch of Drive to Survive, Netflix added 9.5m subscriptions worldwide, for a total of 149m. That's a huge potential audience.

"I thought Netflix, at this point in time for us, was the appropriate platform to tell our story," adds Bratches. "While there are other platforms in the marketplace that warrant a look, this seemed to be the right thing.

"They engaged a production company - the guy that produced Senna [the movie] produced this - and they understood the paddock, they understood the dynamic of the sport, and I think did an excellent job of capturing what we were looking for.

"The teams were fantastic. The only editorial that we agreed in terms of a restriction or a right was the extent to which something was exposed that disadvantaged a team technically.

"You saw the unmasked and unvarnished version, and I think it came through in a very authentic and genuine fashion that is starting to elevate our sport in ways that previously have not existed."

"I think we had some good reasons not to join last year" Toto Wolff

Any regrets about all those f-bombs, especially when targeting a youthful audience?

"As I said, it's authentic!" adds Bratches. "We're not trying to mask anything here, we're extremely proud of the sport and the participants in the sport, and I thought that unleashing this in a genuine way was the right way to do it, as opposed to sanitise it. That's the world that we live in."

As well as being a massive PR exercise for F1 as a whole, it's also been a lucrative one, since the teams will ultimately benefit financially.

"The commerce side of it, top line is that we are remunerated by Netflix. They are paying us for the right to do it - they also pay the production company to produce it - and the revenue that we derive goes into the prize fund allocation," continues Bratches.

"It's quite a nice financial deal for F1. But I think the real benefit to the F1 community, teams specifically, and F1 generally, is the ability to tell the story around the story, the game around the game. It's an aspect of the sport that hasn't been unleashed previously."

Coincidentally, Ferrari and Mercedes both gain, despite opting not to actively participate in the series. Their reluctance was perhaps understandable, given the additional pressures of the championship battle.

"I think we had some good reasons not to join last year," Mercedes boss Toto Wolff explained just after the series first aired. "The main reason was that I felt it was a big distraction, and could potentially be a distraction, especially also because our main competitor was not doing it.

"There is a different environment when you're within your inner circle in the team and you have to protect it and you have a microphone swinging over your head and a camera pointed at you.

"The media work already, as much as it makes F1 and we must be grateful, has become a very, very big part of the race weekends, and I felt that doing more of it would harm us in our performance. This is why I decided that it was not for us."

Losing Mercedes and especially Ferrari for season one was obviously not ideal. Bratches says that F1 can't force teams or manufacturers to take part in any special initiatives, and it's interesting to note that Maranello has opted out of all three cases he cites.

"What we're trying to do at F1 is elevate platforms that the teams can elect to participate in, or not," Bratches says. "Examples of these would be Pirelli Hot Laps for the OEMs [manufacturers], Esports, and Netflix.

"Our objective is to continue to surface opportunities that engage, surprise, delight fans around the world, where the teams can participate if they think there's an alignment with their brand and their interest.

"We're going to find instances where teams participate across the board, and instances where teams selectively participate. If you look at the NBA - they have a very successful Esports league. Twenty of the 32 teams participate. We had eight of 10 last year.

"We're trying to be transparent, we're trying to create paths where platforms juxtapose with the interests of growing the overall sport where everyone benefits."

"What about series two? Ferrari and Mercedes have been involved in discussions, and sources suggest that one if not both are very close to agreeing terms"

So did losing the two biggest names cause any issues with Netflix?

"There was no hesitation in terms of going forward," says Bratches. "We're optimists, so we thought that we would run the tables, so to speak. Entities within F1 will participate or not, based upon their own business objectives, and there was no static at all between us and Netflix in terms of proceeding with the teams that were participating."

It could be argued that Netflix and Box to Box turned the top team "boycott" to their advantage, in that they were able to focus on the untold stories further down the field, and help create some new stars.

"I'm contemplating retiring and becoming Guenther Steiner's agent!" Bratches jokes in reference to the Haas team principal's star turn. "It was a great opportunity to see these young men, whether it's Esteban Ocon or Kevin Magnussen or Daniel Ricciardo, in an environment where we don't necessarily get to see them.

"Seeing Carlos Sainz with his father and cousin watching a soccer game, and the expression of passion of family and community, was great."

So what about series two? Ferrari and Mercedes have been involved in discussions, and sources suggest that one if not both are very close to agreeing terms.

"I'm open-minded," Wolff noted last month. "I liked some of the things in there. Certainly the production's great, how it's made is on a very high level.

"It shines a completely different light on F1. The narrative is interesting. It creates stories that are not the obvious ones. It's not about Ferrari against Mercedes. The sport is maybe not the primary.

"I get feedback from people that are not normally so interested in F1, and they said it's great. So therefore we need to make up our minds. Some of us will stick our heads together and evaluate whether we want to do this or not."

Bratches is confident that series two will work with or without the championship's two biggest teams.

"We're neutral," he says. "Our objective is to have everyone in, there's nothing that we do that is exclusionary here. We're trying to promulgate an environment of transparency, of clarity, of communication, of inclusion. I think that's very important.

"Again if a team or teams don't elect to participate they'll have valid business reasons for doing that, and we respect that."

It's not yet clear what themes series two will follow. There was a certain innocence about the first year, in that no one really knew what to expect, and drivers and team personnel forgot about the cameras - and perhaps experienced a bit of a wake-up call when they saw the unvarnished final edit.

Will people be more guarded second time around, or will they play up to the cameras more, staging scenes that paint them in a good light? Will teams continue to make a special effort to grant unlimited access knowing that so much footage went unused in series one? And are there enough good stories left to be told?

"Netflix are the editors, and the production company Box to Box from a story line standpoint are going to take the lead," says Bratches. "I will say the way it ended this year, focusing on this next generation of young athletes, could give you some insight in terms of where their head is for next year.

"But again, we're not involved in the editorial process at F1, and I think those story lines come out from what is elevated through the filming."