Eight seasons in, and still renewed
Netflix confirmed today that “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” will come back for a ninth run, this time built around the 2026 championship. The show first landed on the platform in 2019, and it has since become the piece of media most often credited with widening Formula 1’s audience.
That growth was sharpest in the United States, a market the sport had spent decades failing to crack. The series trades on access the paddock had never granted before, and on the parts of a driver’s life that happen away from the car. Rivals within the sport have criticised the editing for manufacturing feuds. The viewing figures kept climbing anyway.
“We’re so excited to be making Season 9 of this iconic show,” said Box to Box executive producers James Gay-Rees and Paul Martin. “This year, we’re going to go deeper than ever before into the hidden spaces of this fantastic sport.”
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The season they get to work with
Three threads are already flagged for the new run. The first is Max Verstappen’s future at Red Bull, a question that has followed the Dutchman through most of the year. The second is Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes driver who currently leads the drivers’ standings. The third is the power-unit rules overhaul introduced for 2026, which has divided opinion up and down the pit lane.
Sunday supplied a scene the editors will not have to work hard on. Lando Norris won the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort while Verstappen crashed out in front of his own crowd. Home race, home hero, gravel trap. That is the kind of sequence the show has built its reputation on.
Why the timing matters
A ninth season keeps the cameras rolling through a year in which the order at the front has shifted. Mercedes sit top of the constructors’ table and hold the leading two places in the drivers’ championship, a position the team had not occupied for some time. Whatever Box to Box find in the garages this season, they are filming a reshuffle rather than a repeat.
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