Grand Prix Driver

I got the feeling that this was supposed to be a longer series that was going to celebrate a newly triumphant year for McLaren after two years of disaster. But when it didn't turn out that way they just cut it to four short episodes with a lot of hoopla about the launch. To have made this an effective series you'd need to show the letdown that followed, but the show just skates over that. In short, some bits for the F1 fan like me, but not enough, and not enough drama for the non-fan viewer, so really not very good.

I follow the F1 racing scene casually. Meaning that i enjoy watching the races, but i am not deep into the material. So for me it was a quite entertaining look behind the scenes. I can understand that a die hard fan would be underwhelmed and give it a lower score.

The technology center in Woking - England, where the car is designed and built, is simply impressive and has a very clean look. I would work there, too :)

With only four episodes it is very easy to watch. If you liked the first one, then the rest is a nobrainer. I watched it in one sitting. I really appreciate, that it is NOT a PR Commercial from McLaren. You notice that they made a lot of mistakes during the build of the car and the executives adress them. You can feel the frustration of the drivers after the first tests on the track and the poor performance of the car.

If you're into sports documentaries give it a go!

Good show overall but needs some tuning. Would have loved to see more of how raw it really was. More like NFL's Hard Knocks. You could barely feel the disappointment that McLaren dealt with last year. This team truly worked their guts out to make "Chicken soup out of Chicken shit" and it was some what down played here. You don't really feel how frustrated the drivers and the top 3 really were. That was watered down.

I did enjoy seeing the internal workings of the organization or the amount of what it takes in this day and age to run an F1 team. Would love to see a comparison with say a NASCAR or INDY teams. That is a Racing Fan perspective.

Overall, good stepping off and hope to see more of.

Finally a series on one of my most beloved sports. Fascinating from the beginning till the end, it brings you behind the scenes of F1 and discover its highly entertaining world. Please Amazon make a 2nd season :)

Perhaps this was aimed at people who don't follow F1. For those who do it was a superficial review of problems from a year ago.

Purportedly a behind-the-scenes look those shots were carefully planned and orchestrated.

We see some engineering outputs. Some carefully constructed sound bites. We don't see passion.

Given that MCLaren is now led by a marketing man perhaps we should have expected this approach. But I didn't feel any more connected with the team at the end of the four episodes than I did at the start.

That might also be why they have had trouble finding a title sponsor. Everyone knows what McLaren once was. It's not so clear what someone gets today.

Like the team, the documentary could have been a lot better.