Whether you are a new or longtime Formula 1 fan, here is your ultimate, unofficial armchair companion to the popular Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive, providing deeper insight into the players, tech, and history that drive the show’s plot points.
F1 expert Stuart Codling is your guide to all things F1. The
Formula 1 Drive to Survive The Unofficial Companion is a feature-rich guide that
takes you beyond the series’ personalities and off-track drama to present further context. Topics covered include:
- People – Who does what to keep F1 teams rolling? From personal trainers to race engineers, mechanics, pit crew, and team principal, what does it take to succeed in F1? Sidebars and callouts include significant past players and great rivalries including that between Toto Wolff and Christian Horner.
- F1 History in 20 Cars – From Fangio’s postwar Alfa Romeo to Max Verstappen’s Honda-powered Red Bull and Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, all the great teams feature: Ferrari, Williams, McLaren, Lotus, and more. Callouts features driver gear and great past drivers like Andretti, Brabham, Moss, Schumacher, and more.
- Technology – Who designs and builds today’s mind-bending cars and engines and what does the process entail? Side journeys explore safety features, technology behind key components, and big ideas that flopped.
- F1 Circuits – A look at F1 race course in today, along with features on circuit design, past circuits, and notorious circuit features like Loew’s Hairpin at Monaco and Eau Rouge at Spa Francorchamps.
- Race Strategy – The rules and strategies of race day. Sidebars explore things like tire strategy, the anatomy of a pit stop, and the role of analytics.
- Business – Who pays for the multibillion-dollar spectacle on display in Drive to Survive and how is it possibly profitable? Features and callouts explore the evolution of sponsorship, driver salaries, and backroom deals.
Where relevant, Codling
relates content to specific seasons and episodes, providing even more context for the reality series. The visuals include
scores of action and off-track photos. The result is a visually stunning guide to accompany a wildly popular TV series, and an engaging history spanning seventy-plus years of the world’s most popular motorsport.
Stuart Codling is a respected motorsport journalist and broadcaster who covered sports car racing in the United States before joining F1 Racing, the world’s biggest-selling Formula 1 magazine, in 2001. He has appeared as an F1 expert on TV and radio, hosted for Renault F1, and contributes to F1 Racing, Autosport, Autocar, and the Red Bulletin. Codling is the author of several Motorbooks titles, including Formula 1 Drive to Survive The Unofficial Companion, Real Racers: Formula 1 Racing in the 1950s and 1960s, Art of the Formula 1 Race Car, Art of the Classic Sports Car, and The Life Monaco. Stuart lives in Farnham, Surrey, England.
