For those with Amazon Prime subscriptions. Just saw a trailer last night of a show coming to Amazon Prime in February, called 'Grand Prix Driver'. This is a multiple episode documentary covering in depth the Mclaren team as it readies for the opening of the upcoming F1 season in Australia. Could be very interesting! Kevin
I'm sorry, but I just watched that again. Did they really say that Mclaren is the most prestigious team in Formula 1?!?!? Kevin
I watched all 4 episodes, and would rate it as for F1 fans only. The first three and a half episodes were showing behind the scenes prep for the 2017 season, in the factory, Stoffel training, etc, and then they showed the first practice session in Barcelona with multiple engine issues, and then a quick wrap up of dumping Honda and signing with Renault. No footage of the entire racing season at all. Maybe the original plan was to follow the season with lots of race weekend background, but we're left with about 2 hours of pre-season build up and then nothing as far as this show goes. Nice that they had Michael Douglas narrate, and seeing inside the factory is always interesting, but that's about it.
I don't know what they were trying to do with this... I watched all of it, and it was a bit boring. Alonso was his typical slightly arrogant self... and seemed annoyed and or slightly bewildered that the cameras where there... especially with Matt Bishop... I'm not a fan of Bishop... he's a poor reporter & more of a hanger on.
It was no surprise that Honda showed with an engine with the wrong parts on it. It was no surprise that the engine wouldn't start. What a pack of boobs. It must have been utterly maddening for McLaren to work with a company that was comfortable and accepting of complete failure.
So I saw it today. ** SPOILERS HERE** (Hey in case you didn't know, McLaren Honda had a terrible season) Wow what a massive let down. It seems like they stopped filming before the first race of the 2017 season. McLaren's season was so full of drama and they missed 99% of it -- the conversations with Honda, the negotiations with Mercedes and Renault, the decision to sponsor Alonso at Indy, the dumping of Honda, the signing of Alonso --- all of that is missing completely On the positive side, its a really good behind the scenes look at F1 before the first race and in testing, the PR BS (along with the outright lies) and the bureaucracy in the organization. Some of the stuff shot in the factory is unprecedented. My feeling is Zak Brown wanted this thinking it would draw in more sponsorship money thinking they would have done well last year. It didn't work out so well during the season so they stopped the filming. Its the only explanation I can give. They didn't even cover Australia. There's weird a shot in Ep 1 of them getting ready for the board meeting at McLaren headquarters and someone actually measures the distances between the chairs with a tool with the McLaren logo on it. These guys are just nuts. The one thing you get a sense of is just how COLD everything and everyone is. There's no emotion. It's just a bunch of engineers, managers, and money people. One funny scene is Alonso coming back into the pits in testing and telling everyone "the engine is ******, the PU". I guess they got the point. The title is completely misleading also, they have some really, really boring stuff about Vandoorne (like, who cares?) and almost nothing about Alonso. Very little of it is actually about the drivers. Someone needs to get their money back.
That's what I took away from it. They were expecting fireworks and got a giant damp squib instead....and this is what they salvaged out of it. No big comeback story, but a drawn out infomercial about failure. The upside for McLaren is this year cannot possibly be as bad as the last few years. Season 2 will cover Claire Williams' new lemonade stand.
The show as a big bunch of nothing. Talked a lot but said nothing and showed nothing at all. Waste of time I think, even for F1 fans.
