“Schumacher” - a botched pit stop
don’t waste your time watching “Schumacher”
TLDR; don’t bother watching “Schumacher”
in a sport where a few seconds can make all the difference, there aren’t many things tougher to watch than a botched pit stop.
in September this year, Lewis Hamilton - the reigning 7 time world champion - was in a heated battle with Max Verstappen - this season’s top challenger - at the Italian Grand Prix. about halfway through the race when Verstappen had a significant advantage on Hamilton, we saw Red Bull take 11 seconds to pit Verstappen (Red Bull is known to be able to perform these pit stops in under 2 seconds normally). this was followed shortly by a not as bad but still pretty bad (4 seconds) pit stop by the Mercedes team for Hamilton. as a result, both championship contenders were neck and neck coming off their pit stops and ultimately ended up colliding in an incident that they were lucky to make out of alive.
the Verstappen-Hamilton collision at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix
it doesn’t matter whose side you’re on: both drivers had so much potential, but ended up with nothing to show at the end of the day.
and that is exactly why a botched pit stop is the perfect analogy for this documentary: something that could have been a 2 second pitstop (a display of efficiency, technology and strength) ended up being a 11 second stumbling mess.
the limitless potential
before diving into why the documentary didn’t live up to the hype, its important to understand how much potential there was in a Schumacher documentary. for some context - for the non racing fans - Michael Schumacher is arguably one of the greatest formula 1 drivers in history. he’s won 7 driver’s championships - a feat that was supposedly insurmountable - and held the record for the most driver’s championships won until Lewis Hamilton tied him last year.
essentially Michael Schumacher is to Formula 1 what Michael Jordan is to the NBA. you can imagine how much the producers have to work with…
timing
the 2021 season is shaping up to be the closest battle between the championship leaders in a long time and will likely go down to the final grand prix. in the last 6 races alone, the lead has changed 4 times between Hamilton and Verstappen. for Hamilton, winning the championship this season means that he will pass Schumacher as the driver with the most driver’s championships won (8). Meanwhile, a young Verstappen at Red bull is hungry to show that Hamlton’s era of dominance is over and it's his turn to dethrone the 7 year on track Mercedes dominance.
releasing a Schumacher documentary right now in the midst of all this can be extremely powerful because it reminds all the fans of what is at stake for Hamilton and it gives newer F1 viewers much needed context on how historic of a moment it would be if he manages to win an 8th title.
increased F1 interest
Google trends for the past 5 years shows a steady increase in search volume for Formula 1 from the United states with it reaching its peak in April of 2021.
additionally F1 is the fastest growing sports league on social media. Formula 1 claims that they saw a 99% growth in total social media engagement in 2020 - significantly outpacing the top sports leagues in the world.
Formula 1 saw 99% YoY growth in social media engagement in 2020
the rise of great sports documentaries
the last piece that really tees it up for the Schumacher documentary is the plethora of sports documentaries and movies that have been coming out and absolutely crushing it. Drive to Survive, Senna, Rush, to name a few in the F1 space.
“The Last Dance” released last year and averaged 5.6 million US viewers across all 10 episodes and saw the series watched by a whopping 23.8 million users outside of the US. with a growing US F1 fanbase and an already established international presence, this documentary had serious potential.
why “Schumacher” failed to deliver
despite all the hype, “Schumacher” failed to deliver for one reason: they focused on showing Schumacher entirely from a personal lens while missing out on his meteoric career and tense rivalries.
is showing his life not his story?
the entire documentary is filled with nothing but praise for Schumacher. while this is nice and it’s good to know he is a great person, it doesn’t make for engaging content. imagine if the Last Dance was all of Jordan’s teammates saying he was a good guy…
Aaron Sorkin breaks down story into two elements: intention + obstacle. the intention being what the character wants, and the obstacle being what is stopping them from getting what they want. you can think back to any good story and you’ll be able to find these two elements.
examples of intention and obstacle:
Batman wants to rid the streets of evil, but the Joker has other ideas
in the beginning of the last dance: Michael Jordan wants to win a championship but the Pistons are too physical for the Bulls
towards the end of the last dance: Michael Jordan wants to win a championship but can’t seem to find the will to push himself and his team after winning so many
seems like the producers of Schumacher totally ignored this principle. to be fair, there were a few instances of good intention and obstacles, but they were always overshadowed by someone bringing the conversation back to how great of a guy Michael was.
TWR remake
if we were to remake this documentary we would focus on Schumacher’s impact on Ferrari’s culture. the last time Ferrari won both the driver’s and constructor’s titles before Schumacher joined the team was in 1979. Schumacher and his team had to not only perform on track but also transform Ferrari’s culture into a winning culture.
you have the clear intention: Schumacher wants to win championships with Ferrari.
and you have a complex obstacle: winning in F1 is not a one man sport. it requires team culture, politics, and strategy all working hand in hand effectively.
let us know if you’d watch our remake by sending us a message here. and, if for some reason you ended up watching this documentary even after we recommended against it, let us know what you think.