Max Verstappen on return to Drive to Survive season five: “I hope that they understood my message”

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen is likely to return to Netflix’s docu-series “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” for its fifth season covering the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, having agreed to be interviewed for the show after declining to participate in last season’s program. 

Verstappen discussed the impact that the show has had on the increase of viewership of Formula 1 in the United States and around the world at Red Bull’s car launch in New York City on 3 February. 

“They definitely have done an incredible job in boosting it in the US, and then of course also through Netflix, like I said, everyone in here has Netflix. 

“So, of course having the series on Netflix helped a lot to get a bit more of an insight of everyone’s racing career because it felt always like, probably, everyone was quite a closed environment you couldn’t really get into, so when you have a bit more behind the scenes cameras and footage I think that helped a lot that you can see a little bit more of the personality behind it as well.”

Though he praised the way the show made the sport more transparent and open to fans, he has been equally open about his criticisms of it in the past, especially with regard to how Netflix portrayed him in past seasons. This played a large role in his decision to not take part in season four of the series.

According to RacingNews365.com, Verstappen said that he agreed to do an interview for season five after some discussion with Netflix, ultimately deciding that he needs to be involved in the documentary-series due to his status as current world champion. 

“I spoke with them of course before I was going to give an interview. I hope that they understood my message, and I also know that especially being a World Champion, you have to be part of something like that.”

Verstappen hopes that he will be “happy” with the show’s depiction of the season and how they use the material he gave them.

“So I gave them like 30 minutes to one hour of an interview and I hope that they are going to use it. I don’t know when I’m going to watch it, but I hope they are happy. And I hope that I can be happy after watching it – I know it is important to F1 as well for growing the sport in general.”