The new season of Netflix’s hit Formula 1 docuseries is almost upon us, with Season 7 set to debut on March 7, 2025.

The fly-on-the-wall series takes viewers for a deeper give into the world of Formula 1 beyond what the TV cameras capture, but not every bit of “amazing” footage will make it onto Netflix, as was the case after Daniel Ricciardo’s iconic 2018 Chinese Grand Prix victory.

‘Amazing’ Daniel Ricciardo China 2018 footage did not make DTS

Ricciardo took eight grand prix wins in his F1 career, and one of the most memorable came at the 2018 Chinese GP, where the ‘Honey Badger’ put on an overtaking masterclass after pitting under a Safety Car for fresh tyres, overtaking five cars in just eight laps to take the chequered flag, doing so with a winning margin of nine seconds.

The 2018 season was the first to be documented for Drive to Survive, and “amazing” content was shot that race weekend surrounding Ricciardo, footage that surely would make fans of the DTS icon “lose their mind”.

Only, viewers never got to see it.

“And then as we got into the edit, we started to edit that, we just could never make it work. We tried to squeeze it in,” said Paul Martin – co-founder of the Box to Box Films enterprise behind Drive to Survive, who was there that weekend in Shanghai shooting this Ricciardo footage – in conversation with The Athletic.

“‘Oh, maybe we’ll try in that episode or maybe we could squeeze it in that episode.’ And in the end, it just didn’t have a place in the show. So every year we’re making choices like that, of what really elevates this show in the way that it needs to.”

And when the DTS team is making those tough choices, a key goal for the series is kept in mind.

“We are conscious of telling the same stories from previous seasons so we look for new angles or new ways of telling them,” revealed executive producer Tom Hutchings.

“Once we are happy with the material that is there, the editors start to cut it.”

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Season 7 of Drive to Survive will be the last to feature Ricciardo, who was let go from Red Bull junior team VCARB following the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix.

The status of Ricciardo’s racing career has remained uncertain since, but another former Red Bull driver, 13-time grand prix winner David Coulthard, suggested Ricciardo’s value to F1 could be felt outside of the cockpit if he returned to the scene.

“If he still has racing in his mind then he’s got to find the right championship,” said Coulthard when speaking to digital F1 creator Lucas Stewart over a round of golf.

“I think that there’s no question he would be an asset for a Formula 1 team in terms of personality.

“But this isn’t a personality contest. It’s a stopwatch contest.

“You’ve got to acknowledge McLaren didn’t work out, and then the comeback with VCARB didn’t work out either, but he has been gifted a period of time in Formula 1 where the popularity and growth has been such that he’s a celebrity beyond being a driver.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t already worked out that working within the media space will keep that celebrity. What I would recommend he doesn’t do is think that you can sort of take a year out and then come back and still be as interesting.”

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