Netflix and thrill: Drive to Survive is back next month!

Mark your calendar; set a voice reminder on your Echo; heck, tie a knot in your handkerchief if you have too… Drive to Survive returns on Friday 7 March.

This will be the seventh – yep, seventh – season of the smash hit, access-some-areas documentary (“Oi, geddoutof my motorhome!”), which helped turbocharge interest in F1 around the globe when it first aired in 2019.

Not only is F1 now weirdly popular in a mainstream kinda way, but ‘the DTS effect’ has been so wide-ranging it’s made a cult hero out of a sweary former team boss, and single-handedly created the demand for two entirely new grands prix in Miami and Las Vegas.

As is the Drive to Survive way, Season 7 will be released on the eve of the new season and cover… everything you’ve more or less forgotten about from 2024. It was a while ago now, huh?

There should be plenty for it to get its teeth into: McLaren and Ferrari going at it for constructors’ glory, Max Verstappen cruising to a fourth world title in the third- and sometimes fourth-fastest car, Lewis Hamilton dropping that bombshell… and there’s got to be a farewell episode for Danny Ric, right? The OG DTS star.

“We’re really excited for fans to watch the new season of Drive to Survive,” says Tom Hutchings, executive producer at Box to Box Films, which makes the series. “The 2024 season was incredible both on and off the track, with the action well and truly underway before the first race in Bahrain. Expect more drama and fun from the paddock this season and a few surprises too.

“Go behind the scenes as teams bid for the hottest drivers on the market, experience a weekend with the drivers at the toughest race of the year; and expect a nail-biting finish right up to the last race. Fasten your seatbelts – this season is going to be our biggest ever.”

Season 7 drops just over a week before 2025’s opening race in Melbourne, so you should have enough time to knock back all 10 eps (we’re assuming it’s 10 – the same as the previous six) before filming commences for Season 8… correction, we mean before the proper action begins in earnest.