If ever there was a moment that so frighteningly captured the name of Netflix’s Drive to Survive series, it was Romain Grosjean’s fireball crash last year.
The former Haas driver’s escape from burning wreckage at the Bahrain Grand Prix was the most terrifying scene of the 2020 season and features prominently in the third edition of the popular Netflix series, which dropped on the streaming platform on Friday.
The penultimate episode of the 10-part series focuses on Grosjean’s collision with the barrier and the intense impact it had on the rest of the grid.
Daniel Ricciardo’s emotions were high in the wake of the crash as he slammed F1 broadcasters for showing the incident on loop. “I want to express my disgust and disappointment with Formula 1,” Ricciardo told Dutch broadcaster Ziggo.
“For me, it was entertainment and they’re playing with all of our emotions and I thought it was pretty disgusting.”
Ricciardo also posted an emotional tribute to Formula 1 superfan Charaf-Eddin Ait-Taleson Friday morning after lost his battle with cancer last weekend.
Meanwhile, the new vision from Drive to Survive adds to the gravity of the situation and makes it the most confronting moment of the series.
“This one was hard to watch,” world champion Lewis Hamilton says. “I felt very vulnerable at that moment.”
Fellow driver Sergio Perez adds: “Only when you see those things do you believe the danger we go into.”
But it’s inside the Haas garage where the terror is felt most keenly.
“Once you see fire, that is the worst thing you can have. This is bad,” team principal Guenther Steiner says. “He got lucky today. We need to say thank you to someone up in heaven.”
Grosjean, 34, who lost his seat for the 2021 season, is shown returning to the paddock days later with his hands heavily bandaged.
“The impact was 56G, which means my body was about 3.9 tonnes,” he says. “I was thinking ‘Where am I going to burn first? Is it going to be painful?’”
He’s then joined for an interview by his wife, Marion, who rams home the human element.
“The longer it went on, the more I thought he was going to be dead,” she says.
Even Grosjean’s attempt at humour, where he describes himself with a smile as the “man who walked out of fire”, is met by Marion with a dismissive eye roll.
The 2020 season was packed with several compelling storylines, many of which will be explored in Drive to Survive’s third instalment.
Daniel Ricciardo’s split from Renault, Lando Norris’ maiden podium at the Austrian Grand Prix, Pierre Gasly’s remarkable victory in Italy, Lewis Hamilton passing Michael Schumacher’s all-time record and Sebastian Vettel’s bitter relationship with Ferrari will all get some airtime.
- News.com.au