Max Verstappen, Red Bull RB19 livery launch, 2023

Verstappen “hopes I can be happy” after watching new Drive to Survive season

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In the round-up: Max Verstappen says that he “hopes I can be happy” after agreeing to collaborate with the producers of Drive to Survive ahead of the new season of the Netflix documentary series

In brief

Verstappen “hopes I can be happy” after watching new Drive to Survive season

Max Verstappen says that he “hopes I can be happy” after agreeing to collaborate with the producers of Drive to Survive ahead of the new season of the Netflix documentary series.

After expressing his unhappiness at how he had been portrayed in early episodes of the show, Verstappen refused to participate with the programme, but agreed to work with the show’s producers in filming the latest season.

Asked by RaceFans if he’d been given any assurances by the show’s producers about how he would be portrayed, Verstappen said he “hopes I can be happy” after he watches it back.

“I spoke with them, of course, before I was going to give an interview with them,” he said. “I hope they understood my message and I also know, especially being a world champion, that you have to be part of something like that.

“I think I gave them like 30 minutes, or an hour of an interview. I hope they’re going to use it well – I don’t know when I’m going to watch it. But I hope they’re happy and I hope I can be happy after watching it. And I know that it’s important to Formula 1 as well for growing the sport in general.”

Herta tops day one of IndyCar test

Colton Herta was the fastest driver during the opening day of the pre-season IndyCar test at The Thermal Club in California.

The Andretti driver’s quickest time of a 1’39.372 was just four-thousandths of a second ahead of Christian Lundgaard, with Alex Palou third fastest for Chip Ganassi.

Marcus Armstrong was the best-placed of the four rookies in the filed, setting the tenth-fastest time of the day. The second day of the test remains ongoing at time of writing.

Indy 500 loses double points status

The Indianapolis 500 will no longer count for double points towards the IndyCar championship after the series announced it will now award the same number of points as every other race.

Since 2014, the Indy 500 has awarded 100 points to the winner, rather than the usual 50, with all other positions paying double what they typically would. However, IndyCar announced the race would now pay out the usual amount.

“For 17 consecutive seasons, the IndyCar Series championship has been decided in the final race of the season,” said IndyCar president Jay Frye. “While double points at the Indianapolis 500 has not altered who won the season-long championship, occasionally it has had a negative effect on the final position of the full-time teams.

“As our entry list grows, this move will provide consistency for teams competing for championship positions while not diminishing the importance of ‘The Greatest Spectacle in Racing’.”

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Comment of the day

After Red Bull unveiled the livery in which their RB19 will race in this season, @jabr is left with a sense of deja vu…

Did RaceFans use last year’s images by mistake?
Jose Abreu

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Mantas Degutis!

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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11 comments on “Verstappen “hopes I can be happy” after watching new Drive to Survive season”

  1. Wow, that pop from the crowd when Ricciardo said his good looks. Conclusive proof that F1 has transcended motorsport fans.

  2. No Christian, three in a single country & five on the NA continent as a whole are more than enough.
    Otherwise, we might start making F1 more like IndyCar, Nascar, etc., i.e., a regional-specific series.
    Good thing a NY GP isn’t an intention based on Greg Maffei’s words last year, but of course, never say never.

    I like the board image that features Homer, Burns, Jasmine from Aladdin, & Bottas as a king.
    I don’t recognize the last two.

    Re COTD: Possibly, which would be unsurprising, although if true, the team originally used those rather than Racefans.net or any other 3rd-party.

  3. Noone likes that dirty driver.

    1. Itsmeagain (@)
      4th February 2023, 8:53

      You mean you and your friends in the bubble? I understand that his popularity has somewhat decreased after some actions last your. Bot ‘none’ like this guy? You will be surprised https://www.skysports.com/amp/f1/news/12433/12440256/f1-fan-survey-lists-max-verstappen-as-most-popular-driver-ahead-of-lando-norris-and-lewis-hamilton

    2. I like Max he’s my favourite driver if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it at all

      1. I like Max more than I like his boss. That’s as nice as it gets. Good enough?

  4. I was wondering why Ricciardo wasn’t doing the RB Bathurst run – clearly the US PR is worth more to them.

    1. Only in America could a compere excitedly welcome “Daniel Ret..rdo” to Oracle Red Bull Racing.

  5. Makes sense that teams who are not necessarily competitive for wins, but still committed to the full Indycar season would feel a bit miffed about one-off entries taking a boatload of points from just one race. Double points races rarely make sense, even if the Indy 500 is still a special race on the calendar (the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 is “only” 500 kilometers, rather than miles like the race at Indy).

  6. I would applaud anyone who gets a New York City GP off the ground. It’s still one of the few things I still say will never happen.

  7. I think it would have been “WISE” had Ford Performance put World Stage at the top of their list.

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