Max Verstappen’s rocky relationship with “Drive to Survive” is well-documented. The three-time world champion offers very little when he’s mic’d up in front of the cameras, and even boycotted the series altogether for a time. So it might be surprising to learn that Verstappen has been getting candid on camera for years — just not for Netflix. Nick Hoedeman, who’s directed nearly a dozen documentaries about Verstappen since 2017, explained why he’s been able to paint such an intimate portrait of the Red Bull driver when other documentarians have failed.
“We never stage anything,” Hoedeman told Motorsport. “It’s all authentic. If I don’t capture it, he’s never going to do it again. What you see is what you get.” The Dutch filmmaker, who admitted he wasn’t a fan of Formula 1 before he was tapped to work with a then-teenaged Verstappen, said it took years to build trust with him and his tight-knit inner circle.
“It wasn’t the first day, it wasn’t even the first year, it took time for him to trust me,” Hoedeman explained. “And I think it’s a big plus that I wasn’t a fan because I really couldn’t do the job I did for the last few years if I was,” he went on. “Now Max knows that we’re not manipulating the story … and he knows that when I’m around, I’ll be there for him.”
Max Verstappen in his early years
Photo by: ViaPlay
The first season of “Drive to Survive” depicts an intensely-focused Verstappen in contrast with his laid-back, joke-telling Aussie teammate Daniel Ricciardo. Though their on-track rivalry was real, the two were, and remain, friends off-track. In contrast, Hoedeman said that his films only “broadcast what really happens.”
“We’re not going to create stories,” he said. “We have a relationship that is based on trust and when I’m around he can speak freely. I’m never travelling with a big group with Max. It’s only me, or I have one DOP (director of photography) with me, so it always stays quite personal and private.”
The collection of 11 documentaries, now available to stream in the US and the UK on ViaPlay, give fans a peek behind the scenes of his life, both at the track and at home. The 2023 release, “Anatomy of a Champion,” offers a particularly revealing portrait of a fractured family unit that eventually found its way back together, and explores the complexities of a childhood moulded by ambition. That three-part…
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