Will Buxton: 'F1 would look so different without Drive to Survive'

“The fact that almost every other major sport on earth has tried to do something similar, and the fact that within broadcasting, the sports documentary is no longer known as a sports documentary – people turned around and said, we need to do ‘Drive to survive’ [shows its effect],” says Buxton.

“It became the byword for a personality-driven documentary series that didn’t just pull down to the nuts and bolts of how the was championship won, but [showed] who are the people that we should care about – and I think that’s been incredibly impactful.”

Drive to Survive’s initial early progress was a slow burner. F1 wasn’t basking in the limelight it is now, and it initially took time to build up its audience.

Then, the perfect storm formulated which allowed DtS – and so F1 too – to have lift-off and then some.

“I think the sport and the series had the incredibly fortuitous combination of events around Covid 19, where people were stuck at home and had nothing to do, and found this series,” says Buxton.

“At the same time, the stakeholders involved in F1 had somehow managed to piece together a 17-race calendar for that first year.

“So people were watching the series and could then tune into the races, because it was one of the only major sports in the world that was actually happening at that moment.

“The sheer amount of work that went on behind the scenes in order to ensure that calendar season took place lead to the huge rise of F1 globally, particularly in the US.”

When the following 2021 season proved to be a blockbuster showdown between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, the results for F1 were spectacular – everyone was talking about it, and everyone was watching Drive to Survive.

The net gain has been an unprecedented surge for popularity for the series, not only globally, but particularly the US – a nut the world championship has been trying to crack almost since its inception in 1950.

Three grands prix in Miami, Austin and now Las Vegas is a resounding sign that it has finally succeeded, and Buxton has been able to ride on the coat-tails of it.

Already a well-established F1 journalist when Liberty took over, Buxton was selected as one of a number of talking heads when DtS first began.

However, it’s him who’s become most closely associated with the series, his dramatic intonation becoming highly recognisable.

Despite becoming the lead commentator for Fox’s much-publicised new coverage of IndyCar in the US, Buxton explains that the way the Netflix show is constructed would make it possible for him to be still involved with the F1 documentary too.

“The producers have always been quite careful in terms of not showing me in situ in the paddock, instead I’m just sat in the chair,” he says.

“I do my bit away from races about six or seven times during the year. Every three, four races we have a little sit down and go through stuff.

“Sometimes we’ll do a bit at the track as well throughout the season, so I always have to make sure that I’ve packed the right jumper. There is one very well-travelled sweater, just in case!”

Following his rise to stardom, Buxton has since been parodied for apparently stating the obvious, leading to a wave of memes and faux quotes. However, the presenter emphasises he’s just saying it how he sees it.

“They never tell me the narrative,” he says of the film makers. “They just sit me down and ask questions.

“Contrary to popular but misguided opinion, there is no script!” Will Buxton

“Contrary to popular but misguided opinion, there is no script. I don’t ever know what the episodes are going to be about, what the narrative arc is going to be, what bits of mine are going to be used – I know when you know!”

As a result, his star has risen almost exponentially. One indicator of Buxton’s notoriety is that he has more social media followers than most of the IndyCar drivers in the championship he’s moving over to.

There’s also some irony in the fact that with Netflix having helped to make F1 big in the US, Buxton’s now moving to be the face of a rival championship Stateside. He’s in no doubt about the platform DtS has given him.

“Absolutely massive,” he says on the effect it’s had on his career.

“I will never be able to thank [Liberty’s former commercial boss] Sean Bratches or Paul and James and everybody behind the scenes at Box to Box enough for asking me to come in and do a screen test.

“[When he started his career] I never thought I was going to be interviewing F1 drivers, I never imagined I was going to be interviewed myself or that I could be in front of camera for it.

“I could never have envisaged how much my life would change as a result of this show over the next decade. It’s been one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me in my career.”

What would DtS look like without Buxton? He immediately shies away from taking any credit for its success, instead looking at the bigger picture.

“The gang at Box to Box, they’re absolutely brilliant,” he says. “They’re the ones who made it what it is.

“The incredible editors, you cannot imagine the sheer number of hours of material they have to sift through to find that one 5sec clip that sews the entire episode together.

“It’s not 10 episodes about two weeks at Wimbledon. It’s 10 episodes about 11 months of racing, 10 teams, 20 drivers, 10 team bosses and everything else that goes on around. They are constantly filming every single day and then doing the interviews. How they do it, that’s the secret sauce. That’s the magic.

“We don’t have the year-end DVDs anymore, do we? DtS’s taken the place of the Duke videos I remember getting for Christmas as a kid.

“I hope it continues to go from strength to strength.”