Grosjean won’t watch Drive to Survive season one: ‘I don’t want those memories back’

2018 F1 season

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Romain Grosjean doesn’t plan to watch the first season of Netflix’s Formula 1 series ‘Drive to Survive’ because he doesn’t want to relive the memories of his troubled campaign two years ago.

The Haas driver had a difficult 2018 season including a series of crashes and retirements. But while his 2019 campaign was even less successful, as Haas endured various problems with their car, Grosjean said he has seen its treatment in the new season of Drive to Survive, which features the team in episode two.

“I finished season two yesterday of Drive to Survive,” said Grosjean in an interview with Kym Illman. “I will not watch season one just because 2018 wasn’t a great year for me, I don’t really want to bring back those memories.”

His team mate Kevin Magnussen said there was more to the story of Haas’s struggles in 2019 than Netflix were able to show. Grosjean believes they should have more camera crews at each race to capture events at the track.

“Netflix is doing a great job,” said Grosjean. “Actually, think they should have more crews coming to the races and more crews through all the teams through different races because obviously you never know what’s going to happen before the weekend.

“They can say ‘OK Haas, an American team, so we come with them in America and Austria because they did well [last year] and we’re going to go races with other teams’. But if they had three or four cameras then I think they’d have more entertaining content.

“But for Formula 1, for the fans, for everyone, it’s pretty good.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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15 comments on “Grosjean won’t watch Drive to Survive season one: ‘I don’t want those memories back’”

  1. Probably best you steer clear of Series 2 as well then mate…

    1. I think the implication is that Grosjean seems himself as having underperformed as a driver in 2018 (and after his abysmal “driving” at Spain, I think most fans will agree) which is why he would avoid seeing DTS1.

      Whereas 2019 was a better year for him as a driver, though not for the team or car. Steiner’s acknowledgement that Grosjean’s feedback was right on the mark was very telling, and would definitely raise his stature as a development/test driver for a later point in his career. Yes he had his share of incidents, but none of them were anywhere as catastrophic as 2012 Belgium or 2018 Spain, and many could be described as a case of “it takes two to tango”.

      Steiner’s ire at Silverstone (I think?) is perfectly understandable – after hearing his driver repeatedly complain about the car’s behaviour, something not backed up by his engineers, he’s finally taken a huge decision to run two “different” cars for comparative testing. And the first thing his drivers do is take each other out. Almost anyone would blow a fuse at that (though not many can rival his f-bombs!)

    2. @olliej In the article, it said Romain had watched season 2 and thought Netflix was doing a great job on the strength of that series. So this would constitute locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

  2. Understandable. As for myself: TBH, I don’t have a desire to watch either S1 or S2 because they’re essentially about something I’ve already watched when they happened.

    1. You saw it happening live indeed, but when you see how things unfolded it lights things up.

      Yes, you know the Ricciardo went to Renault, but it is somewhat revealing watching Abiteboul giving Horner a hard time about loosing Ricciardo (S1). Like a payback for RBR trashing Renault’s PU and switching to Honda.

      No spoilers here, but watching Mercedes preparation for Germany 2019, with all the celebrations going on and the only race they allowed Netflix in, and then remembering how it ended up…

    2. I thought the same.. I didnt watch till recenty. Trust me it is nothing what you have come to expect! Watch it!

    3. It’s behind the scenes…

  3. Wait ’til Grosjean’s three kids are told about it at school!

    1. They will have a ‘smashing’ time, no doubt

    2. I thought it was very low to attack drivers on Twitter. Like whenever Grosjean tweets anything, there’s always someone who replies with a tweet about him crashing.

      I thought that was the lowest form of response. But to bring his kids into it? Wow, you’ve just reset an already low bar.

      1. His family ate out of bounds, but he should be reminded of his constant crashing at every opportunity, especially since the FIA refuse to do so. @phylyp

      2. Humour bypass ?

      3. Have to agree with you there @phylyp – very poor response really.

  4. He doesn’t need to. Upon seeing both seasons, it’s clear Steiner is more than happy to remind him instead.

  5. Grosjean can be depended upon to find the wall first, usually before lap 3.

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