Netflix Renews Popular Racing Show for Season 4

Netflix isn’t ready to hit the brakes just yet on one of its hit racing shows. The streaming platform has officially renewed its original series Formula 1: Drive to Survive for Season 4, which will race onto the streaming platform in 2022. The renewal was announced early Thursday morning, Deadline confirmed, just five months after Season 3 premiered back in mid-March.

Originally debuting on the streamer back in March 2019, the gripping, high octane series offers viewers exclusive and intimate access to Formula 1, the greatest racing competition in the world. Each season of the series offers an up-close look at the fast-paced sport, both on and off the track, during one cutthroat season of Formula 1 racing and immerses viewers inside the cockpits, the paddock, and the lives of the key players in Formula 1. In Season 4, “fans will be taken behind the scenes to witness firsthand how the drivers and teams battle it out for victory in the 2021 Grand Prix.” At this time, drivers featured on the season haven’t been announced. Season 3 followed Lewis Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo and other top drivers as they “pursue checkered flags” during the 2020 season, which was shortened by the coronavirus pandemic.

The show has been more than just become a hit among viewers. Throughout its first three seasons, Formula 1: Drive to Survive has been honored with a Bafta TV Craft Award and a Telly Award. It has also received two Broadcast Tech Innovation Award nominations, as well as nominations from the Cinema Audio Society, the Golden Trailer Awards and the Royal Television Society, UK. The show has done more than just take home awards, though, with Ian Holmes, F1’s director of media rights, previously telling Autosport, “what it really demonstrated to us is how many fans might be out there, and how can we talk to existing fans but in a different way.”

“What the Netflix series is showing us is that there is this appetite for content that has no place to be in a [regular] pre-race show. But there is a place for it and people are genuinely fascinated by it,” he said. “The other thing that it’s really demonstrated to us is that what interests people the most is the individuals, the personalities, the rock stars, the drivers, or in some cases maybe a few team principals. It’s that sort of personality-driven programming.”

Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 4 is set to debut sometime in 2022, though an exact premiere date has not yet been announced. The first three seasons are available for streaming on Netflix. The series is executive produced by James Gay Rees and Paul Martin for Box to Box Films.