This was a vast improvement on season 2 which just seemed like an excuse to hear drivers' most colourful curse words, but now the series is feeling less like a documentary and more like a drama series. There are a lot of obvious events from last year that weren't covered. Turkey is mentioned once, Russell at Sakhir is mentioned once, Russell himself has one line the entire series, Verstappen and Raikkonen barely appear at all, and we hear absolutely nothing from Kyvat, Latifi, Huelkenberg, Fittipaldi and Aitken. Netflix are clearly obsessed with Ricciardo as he's had an entire episode to himself in every season so far. There's a surprising lack of Hamilton except for his secondary role in episode 3 and a monologue at the end of the last episode. Sochi gets an entire episode to itself, and Monza becomes the focal point three times.
There's a whole episode dedicated to a largely-fabricated rivalry between Norris and Sainz, and they're still using fake commentary, which I can't stand, as well as mix-and-matching radio messages from different races. That being said, it puts Lawrence Stroll in a very different light as he comes across as someone who's actually passionate about racing rather than a businessman just trying to make a quick buck. Binotto has absolutely no credibility in anything he says. The Haas episode is the juicy :censored:show we've come to expect from them, but the real highlight is the way the Bahrain episode is handled, and the way all the petty rivalries and conflict don't matter for the time being.
Oh, and there's some Bott-ass in episode 3.
The formatting is a bit dramatic for my liking, particularly as it feels like they've had to add it to relatively minor events rather than just use all the big ones. A lot of the "private" conversations, particularly ones away from the races feel increasingly scripted now as well. I'm assuming next year Mazepin will get quite a grilling, and I guess we'll have to see what else happens that they can work with.