Formula 1: Drive to Survive — Season 8 | First Look | Netflix

The engines are revving, the paddock is buzzing, and the most gripping chapter yet of Formula 1’s greatest off-track story is almost here.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 is landing on Netflix on February 27, 2026 — and if the first look trailer is anything to go by, this might just be the most compelling season the series has ever produced. Set against the backdrop of a 2025 campaign that delivered a three-way championship battle down to the very last lap of the very last race, a seismic team principal sacking, Lewis Hamilton’s turbulent debut at Ferrari, and a rookie class that threw itself headlong into the sport’s deep end, Season 8 has no shortage of material to work with. The real drama practically wrote itself — and now Drive to Survive gets to retell it all in glorious, cinematic detail.

What the First Look Trailer Shows Us | Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8

Netflix officially dropped the trailer for Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 ahead of its premiere on February 27, 2026, offering fans a dramatic first glimpse at how the 2025 Formula 1 season will be retold. The Direct

The trailer opens with scenes from the spectacular F1-75 launch event in London, setting the tone for a season packed with expectation. “This is the moment we have all been waiting for,” McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri told the camera beneath the blue stadium lights as teams prepared to unveil their liveries. The Direct

From there, the footage moves fast — radio messages cut over sweeping track shots, team principals pace nervously in their garages, and the weight of a season’s worth of decisions crashes together in under two minutes. The rookie class of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman, Isack Hadjar, Gabriel Bortoleto, Jack Doohan, and Liam Lawson all feature prominently, The Direct with the series seemingly set to chart their baptism of fire in the sport’s most unforgiving arena.

The footage also alludes to significant driver market shake-ups, likely covering the strategic manoeuvres that set the stage for the current 2026 regulations What’s on Netflix — meaning Season 8 won’t just be a retrospective of 2025, but a narrative bridge into the new era of Formula 1 that fans are now living through.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 Storylines — Where Do We Even Begin?

Lando Norris — The World Champion Arrives

Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 covers the 2025 campaign, headlined by a genuine three-way scrap for the Drivers’ Championship between Lando Norris, Max Verstappen, and Oscar Piastri. Norris eventually clinched his first world title by two points in Abu Dhabi — the kind of margin that makes every strategy gamble and radio message feel personal in hindsight. What’s on Netflix

ForFormula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8, this is the ultimate narrative gift. Norris has been one of the series’ most compelling figures since the very beginning — charismatic, emotionally open, and constantly on the edge of the breakthrough that always seemed to slip away. Lando Norris went on to win a maiden World Championship, Netflix Tudum and watching that journey retold through Drive to Survive’s intimate lens — with the full context of every near-miss and nervous radio call — promises to be genuinely emotional television.

Max Verstappen — The Comeback King

The battle for the Drivers’ Championship took several twists and turns, with Oscar Piastri establishing himself as an early favourite before Max Verstappen embarked on a remarkable resurgence in the second half, the Dutchman putting himself right back into the fight. Netflix Tudum

From being the driver that so many people didn’t like outside of the Netherlands, Verstappen suddenly had fans rooting for him The Hollywood Reporter as the underdog — a remarkable reversal that Drive to Survive is perfectly placed to explore. The show has had a complicated relationship with the four-time champion over the years, but with Verstappen at the centre of the season’s most dramatic comeback story, his narrative is unavoidable.

Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari — The Dream That Became a Nightmare

Perhaps the most emotionally loaded storyline of the entire 2025 season. Hundreds of fans gathered at Maranello to watch a sharply-dressed Lewis Hamilton stride into the Ferrari factory for the first time last January. By the end of the season, the seven-time champion cut a dejected figure, having been eliminated from the first stage of qualifying three times in a row, and spoke of having “an unbearable amount of anger and rage.” Deadline

The marriage of Hamilton and Ferrari brought together the two most glamorous brands in F1. But Year 1 of the project was an abject failure. Hamilton could not get to grips with the SF-25 car and struggled mightily during his opening act at Maranello. He would eventually finish the season in sixth place in the Drivers’ standings with 156 points. The Hollywood Reporter If the Netflix crew secured the access needed to trace the full arc of that decline — from the euphoria of the announcement to the quiet devastation of the results — it could be one of the most powerful individual episode arcs Drive to Survive has ever produced.

Christian Horner — The Fall of Red Bull’s Architect

Undoubtedly the biggest single moment of the 2025 season came on July 9, 2025, when Red Bull announced they had sacked Team Principal Christian Horner after a glorious 20-year run in charge. The Hollywood Reporter The downfall of Christian Horner will surely be irresistible to producers, whose formula of spotting a controversy and pointing the cameras at it has been a surefire hit since the very first season. Deadline Horner built Red Bull from nothing into a Formula 1 dynasty — and his departure, however it unfolded behind closed doors, is exactly the kind of seismic paddock story that Drive to Survive exists to tell.

Jack Doohan and Flavio Briatore — The Most Uncomfortable Episode of the Year

Flavio Briatore’s return to the F1 paddock produced one of the most striking episodes of Season 7, partly thanks to his sinister pledge to Jack Doohan that he would control him “every millimetre.” That transpired to mean that the inoffensive Doohan was booted from his Alpine seat after the first six races of the season in favour of the accomplished but also well-sponsored Franco Colapinto. Deadline The saga continued in 2025, and its full unravelling in Season 8 will make for uncomfortable, unmissable viewing.

The Rookie Class of 2025

In addition to the scrap between Norris, Verstappen, and Piastri, there were headline driver moves, captivating battles in the midfield, contrasting fortunes for a sizeable field of rookies, and much, much more. What’s on Netflix The 2025 grid welcomed one of the most exciting rookie cohorts in recent memory, and Drive to Survive’s ability to humanise these young drivers — to show the fear, the pressure, and the sheer exhilaration of their debuts — is one of the things the series does best.

The Show That Changed | Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8

It’s impossible to discuss Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 without acknowledging what it has meant for the sport itself. The show has received recognition for the additional insight it offers fans and is credited with attracting new audiences — particularly American — to the sport. The condensing of season-long themes into single-episode narratives has drawn praise for adapting “the natural drama of a racing season into a narrative that can encourage a fan to tune into the real thing.” Netflix Tudum

Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 has been a major win for F1 — perhaps the biggest single factor in the sport’s growth since the takeover by Liberty Media in January 2017. The Hollywood Reporter It didn’t just bring new fans to the sport — it transformed how existing fans experienced it, giving every race an emotional backdrop, every team principal a character arc, and every driver a story worth following beyond the timing screens.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 isn’t building the audience from scratch anymore. It’s shaping how we remember a season we already argued about in real time. What’s on Netflix For long-time fans, it reframes moments they watched live. For newcomers, it’s the perfect on-ramp into one of the world’s most complex and captivating sports. Both audiences leave satisfied — and both come back the following year. That’s a rare trick for any series to pull off, and Drive to Survive manages it every single time.

More Than Just Racing | Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8

What makes Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 so compelling is its storytelling approach.

You don’t need to understand every technical detail of a race car to enjoy it. The show focuses on:

• Ambition
• Ego
• Redemption
• Team loyalty
• Mental resilience

Drivers are shown as real people under extraordinary pressure. Team principals are strategists juggling millions of dollars and split-second decisions. Engineers work tirelessly behind the scenes.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 looks ready to go even deeper into those emotional layers.

Production Details | Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8

The eighth season of Formula 1: Drive to Survive contains 8 episodes, which are set to be released on Netflix on February 27, 2026. In March 2025, Netflix officially announced the renewal of the series for an eighth season. TheWrap The series is produced by Box to Box Films, the London-based production company that has been behind every season since the show’s debut in 2019, with James Gay-Rees and Paul Martin serving as executive producers.

Season 8’s release date is nine days before the first Formula 1 race of 2026, following the same pattern as most previous Drive to Survive series, Netflix Tudum with the Australian Grand Prix kicking off the new campaign on March 6-8 in Melbourne. The timing is deliberate and perfect — Season 8 lands just as the anticipation for the new season reaches its peak, giving fans the ideal pre-season companion to get fully immersed before the lights go out in Australia.

All 8 episodes will be available to stream globally on Netflix from February 27, 2026, alongside all seven previous seasons.

Why You Need to Watch Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8

Modern Formula 1 doesn’t need scriptwriters. It never has. But Drive to Survive’s genius has always been its ability to find the human story inside the technical spectacle — to make you care about the gap between first and second not just because of the championship points, but because of what it means to the person sitting in the cockpit.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 arrives with a 2025 season that gave it everything: a champion crowned by two points, a legend humbled by a car he couldn’t tame, a dynasty decapitated mid-season, and a generation of rookies throwing themselves at the sport’s highest wall and seeing who would stick. Whether you watched every race live or haven’t yet caught a single lap, this is the season of Drive to Survive that will remind you exactly why this show matters.

Tune in from February 27, 2026, exclusively on Netflix for Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8.

Stay locked to FlicksAndRatings.com for full episode breakdowns, reviews, and all the latest Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 8 coverage as the 2026 season gets underway.

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