Will Buxton’s appearance in Netflix’s Drive to Survive has made him quite famous for his takes and commentary throughout the show’s running since 2019. However, he revealed on the Fast and the Curious podcast that he never knew what he was getting into when Liberty Media’s commercial head asked him first about working with Netflix.
Buxton mentioned how Sean Bratches, who has previously worked with ESPN, asked him to go and interview drivers for the Netflix docu-series. To this, the F1 journalist agreed quickly, given it was his job. But then came the revelation. He said,
“And I get there and they’re pointing the camera at me and I wasn’t expecting them to. I had no idea I was going to be in front of the camera.”
Buxton has been a household name on Drive to Survive (DTS) since the first season. He has faced a fair share of criticism about some of his dialogue in the show. Many have called out Buxton for saying some of the most obvious things in the show, such as ‘if one qualifies on pole, he starts ahead of the other 19 drivers’.
In response to such criticism, Buxton said he has often mentioned such basic things in the early seasons of DTS to educate the newer audience of F1. However, when it comes to recent seasons, the 43-year-old has given some outstanding takes and seemed more assured in what he has been saying.
Buxton revealed why there has been a coming-of-age in his role in DTS. He stated that during the first season, it was all very novel for him with cameras pointing at him and he wasn’t as prepared and accustomed to being in the interviewee chair rather than being the one who asked the questions.
Buxton’s nervous dilemma with DTS
In 2018, Buxton wasn’t ready to properly portray one of the narrators. He explained how his braincogs were winding up while he spoke and shot for the series. The F1 presenter became very aware of certain rules that he followed while shooting for DTS.
He mentioned these rules on the podcast, “Right you gotta think of the answers here. You’ve got give something that is going to be interesting, also don’t get yourself in trouble, don’t swear”. All in all, Buxton claimed that his normal “free-flowing speech” became “syncopated and very drawn out and thoughtful”.
That is why, he often took a lot of long pauses in the initial seasons of DTS. As time has passed, he has improved a lot on these aspects and perhaps got accustomed to the fact that he is one of the key figures of the Netflix series.
