Max Verstappen slams Netflix over portrayal in Formula 1 doco
Formula One ace Max Verstappen has taken a potshot at Netflix over his portrayal in the streaming service’s popular ‘Drive to Survive’ documentary series.
The second season of the series was released on February 28, with many sections focused on Verstappen’s Red Bull Racing team and their struggles to find a suitable teammate for the pacy Dutchman.
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Verstappen, 21, has given the show’s producers a little clip after release, saying his competitive personality was warped for the purposes of storytelling.
“The problem is they will always position you in a way they want,” he said, in a Red Bull interview.
“It’s a series, whatever you say they will try to make you look reckless or try to make you into whatever fits the story of the series.
“The series is all about excitement and it needs to be exciting, so they position you and whatever fits to the episode.
“You’re interviewed and they use the words also under different circumstances, so it never really fits.
“I never really liked that. I prefer to just have a one-on-one interview with the person who would like to know me.”
Verstappen will enter the 2020 F1 season as one of the favourites to take the fight to the dominant Mercedes team, which has won the last six driver’s and constructors championships.
After switching engine manufacturers from Renault to Honda in 2019, Red Bull won three races, marking the Japanese company’s first F1 victory since 2006.
Ferrari under pressure after pre-season testing
A lacklustre outing at pre-season testing has prompted Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto to openly ponder the team’s commitment to the 2020 Formula 1 season, with a massive rules shake-up planned for the 2021 season.
Team will need to find a delicate balance between improving their car for this season, or choosing to sink more resources into a 2021 campaign which looks set to create a more level playing field between the sport’s 10 teams.
Ferrari have admitted they are playing catch-up with the season-opening Australian Grand Prix less than two weeks away.
In a sport where being half a second behind your rivals can feel like an eternity, Binotto said Ferrari had big questions to ask themselves if they couldn’t get up to speed within the first few races of the season.
"How much will the 2020 catch up affect the 2021 [project]? - that's certainly a good point," Binotto told motorsport publication Autosport after pre-season testing.
"I think it's a compromise that we need to find out.
“I think we are very early in the season, and you cannot compromise the entire season itself.
"So at the start of the season, we certainly keep pushing on 2020 as much as we can, because it's time for us to understand the car and the weaknesses.”
WITH AAP
