Quote Originally Posted by SteveSly View Post
I just finished the most recent season of Drive To Survive on Netflix. I am not a person who follows Formula 1 that close, but I have really enjoyed the series. For those of you more familiar with F-1 I have a few questions that after watching the series I am not clear on:

• What is the difference between the Red Bull team and the Toro Rosso team? One appears to be considered a higher level than the other one, but that is never really explained. Pierre Gasley gets cut from the Red Bull team, but then ends up on Toro Rosso and finishes the season ahead of one of the Red Bull driers in the standings. How does that all work? Are they the same team just with different names or are they different teams?
Ian already answered this question, for the most part, but left out three important aspects:

1. Toro Rosso (who is known as AlphaTauri for 2020) is a completely different team but owned by the same parent company, Red Bull GmbH, the beverage company headquartered in Austria. They also own Red Bull Racing. It's sort of like the difference between ABC & FX, both owned by Disney Media. BTW, "toro rosso" is simply Italian for "red bull".

2. The reason that Gasly finished the season ahead of Alexander Albon, who replaced him at Red Bull, is because Red Bull is the better team and Gasly usually finished ahead of Albon for the first 12 races. Albon was in the Red Bull for only 9 races. Gasly's average finish in a RB was around 7.5; Albon's average was 6.2.
Now, what will really blow your mind is that the other driver at TR, Dany Kvyat , was first signed to TR in 2014, then went to RB for '15 & '16, was demoted to TR mid season in '16 (replaced by Verstappen), stayed there for '17 until he was replaced by Gasly, and was then let go. He was a development driver for Ferrari for '18 but then re-signed by TR for '19. I'm of the opinion Kvyat isn't that good, even tho he often outperformed Albon in '19. The difference is that Kvyat couldn't handle the pressure at RB. Nor could Gasly, for that matter. Albon stepped in and has outperformed them both.

3. Red Bull has the best Technical Director in F1: Adrian Newey.

• Mercedes appears to own young drivers who are on other teams? The kid who drives for Williams (name escapes me) is actually managed and owned by Mercedes? There was another driver on the show that seemed to be in the same situation. How does that work? I have never heard of anything like that in U.S. based racing.
You're thinking of George Russell. Estoban Ocon and Pascal Wehrlein were a couple more. Wehrlein never really did anything in F1 but Ocon ended up at Renault with Daniel Ricciardo and severed his relationship with Mercedes.

• Why does the show feature some teams and drivers and completely ignore others? I am thinking of teams like Alfa Romero who have well known drivers but are hardly mentioned in the series.
Two reasons:
1. They go where the drama or interesting story is (e.g. Daniel Ricciardo switching to Renault).

2. Because those others were "also rans". The last six teams in the constructor's championship were (points in parentheses):

5. Renault (91)
6. Toro Rosso (85)
7. Racing Point - BWT (those ugly-ass pink cars) (73)
8. Alfa Romeo (57)
9. Haas (28)
10. Williams (1)

There just isn't much interest in them.