Can we guess who, in the whole entire world of F1 was the second person to appear on the new season of D2S? Yes! A Spice Girl! Newly Posh Spice, formerly Ginger, Gerri Horniwell. Also making a career change comback is Claire Williams, who now seems to be a pundit for the show.
There was an interesting snippet where Sainz and Hamilton were "caught" discussing Mercedes drive for the 2025 season; Lewis was advising that he didn't think the team were going to win again. Carlos said that he had not heard from the team boss so felt an offer of driver there was unlikely. It seemed a very sad start to the season already.
The release of the cache of messages and emails that were sent to team principals and every member of the press about Horner's alleged misbehaviour was a key selling point for the series. He was looking hunted already on the show but it was starting to look like D2S was on Horner's side but also did manage to make him look a little shady. It seems like it was a very long time ago and all has been forgotten now. Geri's face could not have looked more tense if she was taking Ozympic.
The editor and director didn't seem to know what direction they wanted to take the first episode, was it all about Sainz's departure from Ferrari or Horner's failure to depart from Red Bull? It finished with Sainz beating Red Bull at Australia.
In the second episode, they brought up the name Lando "No Wins" Norris. I've never heard this, neither had Jenson Button. Having created a little extra jeopardy for the McLaren driver, in episode three, they went for George Russell. I don't think there was ever any question that George Russell had a drive at Mercedes in the 2025 season but it was played that he was contending for the lead driver position. There was a lot of comment about how he needed to step things up to achieve this.
Where it used to be that Netflix were lucky to be embedded in the right team at the right time, they are now staging increasingly awkward interactions between drivers and their team principals and other staff. It's really taking away from what was a somewhat serious sporting documentary.
The episode felt rushed, Antonelli's announcement coming hastily at the end and Toto Wolff not looking completely confident in his decision.
Episode four can't have been easy viewing for Logan Sargeant. It was his crash highlights, with Williams Team Principal, James Vowles, listing the parts he had gone through. The title was "Carlos Signs". We didn't know that Sainz had backed out of the first signing with Williams. It was the second coming of Briatore. Some of us remember him from the first time around and his no holds barred support of Schumacher. Those younger will remember crashgate, when he was the engineer of Piquet Jr deliberately crashing to enable Alonso a late-career win.
There were some episodes where the focus was so obvious I had nothing to comment on about it. The one where they gave them phones to film on and focused on the brotherhood was sweet. Then they moved on to the Danny Ric Story. Someone, probably Will Buxton, made the point that if he had only stayed at Red Bull and not left to go to McLaren, he could have been world champion. You could see that Netflix were sad to lose him from the show and this was his grand finale.
With Steiner gone, the production team were looking to the returning Briatore to bring some fire. You could see he was tired with the idea. One episode was Haas vs. Alpine. Ocon really presented that he chose to go to Haas. This was contrasted with Flavio calling him "a spoilt brat"; then we saw someone in the Haas factory questioning his appointment there.
The final episode tied up loose ends with Verstappen winning the Drivers' Championship and McLaren winning the Constructors'. As well as the number of drivers leaving teams. The bizarre outpouring of emotion at Hamilton leaving but only for Ferrari, not forever, was shown. He was allowed to do doughnuts, what will they do when he finally quits F1? Shoot him, embalm him and set in a glass tomb in Stevenage?
Didn't mention: Sargeant being dismissed, Newey leaving Red Bull.