Max Verstappen has slammed the hit documentary series Drive to Survive which has made Formula One a hit in the United States and across the globe.
The Netflix show has proved massively popular around the world but particularly in America, the market the sport has long been trying to break firmly into. But Verstappen now wants no part in it and blasted the series for making one of his fellow drivers, Lando Norris, “look like a d***.”
The world champion said: “I saw the last one and I was surprised to suddenly find myself talking in it. They had picked up some stuff that I said in 2018 and used it, about fighting and what I liked to do - but that already is not correct. It’s just not my thing. They try to pick moments and fabricate it.
“But what I didn’t like was not about me … it was about Lando (Norris) and Daniel (Ricciardo). They are two great guys who are really nice and they made it look like Lando was a bit of a d***, which he isn’t at all. I know Lando - he’s a great guy, a funny guy, great character and you look at this and think … ‘what the hell is going on?’. So if you’re new to the sport and you’ve never seen a racing car before, they don’t like him. So why should that be because he is a great guy?
“So you immediately get the wrong picture of a person and that’s exactly what I think happened to me in the beginning. And I’m someone who, if you ruin it from that start, you don’t fix it, you’ve ruined it. That’s it. That’s my stance.”
The Red Bull driver’s mood was not improved when reflecting on last weekend in Bahrain when he was running in second place when mechanical failure forced him to retire with only two laps to go. He said: “You can say it was unlucky but it should not happen. To retire, basically, three cars (his team-mate Sergio Perez on the last lap and Pierre Gasly in the Red Bull sister car, the Alpha Tauri) is pretty bad - there is no way round that.
“We have to do better if we want to fight for the title. You cannot have too many races like we had in Bahrain.”
