Red Bull boss Christian Horner, intervened by using the team’s veto power to stop embarrassing content from showing on Netflix’s series Drive to Survive in order to avoid any public embarrassment.
Red Bull has a “get out of jail free” card as part of their arrangement that gives Netflix the inside scoop to stop any secrets or possibly embarrassing comments from getting up onto the show.
Red Bull has stepped in on several occasions over the past five seasons to keep the attention on the sport and away from the drama even though spectators have been allowed a peek behind the scenes.
Despite Horner’s general support for the Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive, there have been a few instances throughout the course of the show’s five seasons where he felt compelled to put his foot down.
“My wife has always said to me a pat on the back is only six inches from a kick up the arse,” Horner said earlier this year. “This is like the Kardashians on wheels.”
More recently, Horner expressed concerns that the team might have suffered commercially as a result of some of the hours of footage the film crew recorded throughout the season.
“What you’ve got to remember is that it’s a television show,” Horner said in an interview with Financial Times newspaper this week. “They capture hours and hours of content… The problem is they put a microphone on you at the beginning of the day and you forget that they’re there.
“Then you get to the end of the season and they tend to send you the clips of just you and your team.
“You think ‘Did I really say that? Did I really call someone a See You Next Tuesday?’
“At that point we say, ‘You can’t put that in there, there’s a part of the car you can’t show’,” The Red Bull boss added. “That’s the only get out of jail card we have.”
Max Verstappen withdrew from the Netflix show in the past over tensions between Red Bull and the production team, who he believed was fabricating plot for the drama. As the two-time reigning champion, the Dutchman returned to the series this year to give his reviews where he explained his perspective on the events at hand.
Red Bull also had a disagreement with a different media company when it cut ties with Sky Sports F1 at the Mexican GP of last year following remarks made by pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz.
