Netflix Formula 1 Drive to Survive season 8 release date confirmed | F1 | Sport
Formula 1 fans will not have to wait for much longer to feast their eyes on the new season of hit Netflix show Formula 1: Drive to Survive. Now in its eighth year, the world-famous docu-drama will return ahead of the 2026 campaign with behind-the-scenes footage from some of the biggest storylines from the previous season.
And the camera crews that spent 2025 buzzing around paddocks around the world were hardly starved of juicy storylines to document. Most notably, there will likely be fresh insight into the days and weeks before and after Christian Horner was axed by Red Bull after 20 years in charge, which rocked F1.
Beyond that, there will be insight into Lando Norris‘ title victory, despite spending most of the season behind team-mate Oscar Piastri in the drivers’ standings. A subplot in that particular story was the Red Bull upgrade and the McLaren mistakes which, combined, allowed Max Verstappen back into the title race to run the Brit close at the end of the year.
Other potential plot points may will likely involve the Red Bull driver swaps that made headlines both early and late in the 2025 campaign, legendary designer Adrian Newey‘s first months working at Aston Martin, Lewis Hamilton‘s miserable first season at Ferrari and Jack Doohan being axed by Alpine in favour of Franco Colapinto.
The good news for fans is that they will not have to wait much longer to get that inside track on all those huge storylines and more. The trend in years gone by has been for a series to be released at 8am GMT on a Friday, exactly nine days before the start of a new F1 season.
It has now been confirmed that Netflix will continue with that convention. Both the streaming giant and F1 themselves posted on social media on Wednesday to confirm that the eighth season of Formula 1: Drive to Survive will be released worldwide on February 27 – nine days before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on the first weekend of March.
Box to Box Films will continue to produce the show, which has been widely credited with providing a significant boost to F1’s popularity around the world. The show has been praised for giving screen time to the biggest and best personalities the sport has to offer, though some of them are now no longer in the sport, such as self-styled ‘villain’ Horner and former driver Daniel Ricciardo, a real fans’ favourite.
But the show has also come into some criticism, including from some high-profile figures within the sport, for the way it presents some stories. Max Verstappen is among those who have publicly claimed the way the show is edited does not always provide an accurate portrayal of how some events have occurred.
It is not yet known whether Formula 1: Drive to Survive has been renewed for a ninth season. Netflix cameras, though, have continued to roll during the off-season in anticipation of a series covering the events of the 2026 campaign being green-lighted.
