Netflix’s hit docuseries Drive to Survive has significantly dropped viewers following season six’s arrival on the streaming service.
It has been reported that the show has lost 23.2% of its viewers after the new season aired. Notably, it has been a highly successful title for Netflix since it debuted in 2019, but now it seems viewership is changing, with people losing interest.
Figures released by Netflix show that 2.9million viewers watched Drive to Survive season six in its first three days, a steep drop of 23.2% from the previous year. This might have happened because the show has been criticised for creating fake narratives, including rivalries when they don’t exist, making villains out of drivers and generally over-dramatising relationships.
Famously, Max Verstappen refused to participate in interviews for seasons 2, 3 and 4, as he believed the show over-dramatised things by portraying some drivers as baddies. However, he would join in season 5 after agreeing with the producers that they “keep it real”.
“With the nature of the show, you have to shoot a lot of material in order to get an episode,” executive producer James Gay-Rees told Formula One about the new series. “We don’t use quite a lot of stuff, because editing is just a brutal process, but they all do give a lot, which we’re extremely grateful for.
Explaining: “If you’re shooting a show about an airport or a hospital you’ll shoot way more than you use by definition. It’s observational film-making; you’re not shooting a fixed script, you’re shooting material, which you then pull together to make episodes.”
Watch the trailer for Drive to Survive season six below.
