I have been waiting for this series ever since I knew that it was coming. I am not a particularly big Senna fan – I think it is because I haven’t lived through his career, and don’t really have emotional ties to him – but as I am searching for who could be my F1 hero, I wanted to give him a chance and watch the series properly. SoI did some preparation: I rewatched the 2010 documentary and I have also read the relevant parts of Adrien Newey’s book. (If you want to enjoy the series, I discourage you to do this!) I am honestly a bit disappointed. I wasn’t bad by any means, but something was missing for me. 

I didn’t like the angle of the whole thing: it showed Ayrton has always been badly discriminated against, his girlfriends never fully understand him, and all in all, he was just the underdog in most situations. While I don’t deny that this might be true, I miss that part where he was also on the other side. 

Starting with the fact that he came from a relatively well-off family, so financing his racing was not a problem (while it is/was a real struggle for others). The Prost-Senna rivalry is also a great example  – honestly, I feel bad for Prost (and they cast a guy who annoyed me even just by looking at him), because he became one of the villains of the story. (And just out of curiosity, have you ever met anybody who rooted for Prost against Senna?) 

While I get that he became a world champion in 1989 because Senna and he crashed (so the narrative is that he took our Senna on purpose), the same thing happened next year, just the reverse – Senna was the beneficiary of the crash and became a world champion. But as Senna would never do anything like this on purpose, that was just a racing incident. I don’t like this double standard.

I also didn’t like that the series stuck to the structure of the documentary, so much so that actual conversations and quotes were acted out – and while I see no problem with this in general, why are those the exact same ones that they made it to the documentary as well? I felt that Netflix couldn’t decide if they wanted a very true documentary-like thing (which was already made in 2010), or a drama series, where they add made-up scenes to strengthen the line of the story. But because they wanted both, they ended up going in opposite directions and ended up with something that is too fake to be documentary, but not dramatic enough to be a drama.

The last episode I think managed to decide to go in the drama direction, especially adding the Lauda-Senna conversation and an element of Senna kind of hesitating if he should race or not. I really liked that, it made the story a lot stronger. I feel like this style would have made it a lot better: adding scenes that could have happened, and maybe they did, but we don’t know, and take it a bit towards some kind of stronger storyline. Adding a journalist, Laura did not add anything in my opinion. While I understand the purpose of it somewhat (to make Senna affected by the media), I don’t think it managed to do what it was supposed to.

Regarding the last episode, I really appreciate that some small but important details were added, it was a nice touch. Like his knuckles being hurt – his team had to change some steering wheel specs because of this, and after the accident, for a while it was a possible explanation that this caused the accident, so it is super important. Or the fact that Sid Watkins, the doctor told him to go fishing instead of the race. 

In that scene they also mention someone called Comas whom Senna saved, and while it is a nice touch to mention it, I think it would have added a lot more, if they actually showed that in a scene. The story is that Eric Comas crashed in Spa, and when Senna saw it, he got out of his car and went to help him: stopped Comas’s car (which kept pumping fuel into the wreckage) and kept the guy in a stable position – Comas always said that Senna saved his life that day. This was not in the documentary, neither in the series, even though I think it showed Senna’s character a lot more things that they decided to add. 

So, my opinion is that, yeah, you should watch it, but don’t do any previous research (maybe do it afterwards?). I am also sure that it will be very nostalgic to a lot of people, who lived through these years, and were fans of his. It is of course gets very emotional at the end. (Did I cry? Of course, I did.) For me it was 6/10, but felt a bit like something was missing, like it could have given more than this, but it didn’t (especially if I compare it to the series I wanted something different from that).

I hope it will introduce F1 to more people and they won’t be deterred by how unjust and discriminating the sport is portrayed. I also have to give it that the atmosphere was 5 star. I have researched the 80s because of the Montjuic article and also watched a lot of footage, and I got the exact same feelings (and also because of this research, I know that rain lights were introduced only in the 90s, so what you see during all those 80s races, well, the drivers did NOT see that). The music was also very on point – I usually don’t notice the music, unless it is exceptionally bad or good, and this time, it was great!! If you want to get into the 80s, 90s mood, there is also a tracklist on Spotify.

How did you like it?