The Sky’s the Limit – Breaking down Season 8, Episode 5 of Drive to Survive

Here’s what happens in our feature episode of Netflix’s latest series

Published

28 FEB 2026

Est. reading time

3 min

Season 8, Episode 5 of Drive to Survive – The Sky’s the Limit – puts Atlassian Williams F1 Team firmly in the spotlight. You already know how our story unfolded last season… but this episode gives you the behind-the-scenes version.

Join us as we break it down… oh, episode spoilers ahead (of course).

Taking flight with the Blue Angels

We don’t ease into this one. Instead, Alex Albon and James Vowles are strapped into fighter jets with the Blue Angels in Florida.

“I don’t want the footage to be me passed out,” Alex says. Thankfully for his sake, he needn’t have worried.

Speaking about the 2025 campaign, James shares: “This season I’m buzzing because there’s an up-step in the team, there’s a strength in the team. And I’m buzzing because Carlos will be here.”

Consider that the main plotline for the next 40 minutes.

From Florida sunshine to Oxfordshire drizzle, we switch scenes… and so does Carlos Sainz’s climate. Caco, Carlos’ manager, quips that it’s quite the change from Maranello.

“Porridge. English breakfast. Baked beans. Apart from this, there’s nothing really particularly good about it.” Carlos is clearly not the biggest fan of English cuisine.

It’s a bacon bap for breakfast at the start of testing. “When I’m in the UK, I follow the English diet,” he insists.

On track, the episode revisits what you all lived through with us: a tricky start on one side of the garage, a strong run of form on the other. Alex hits an early rhythm, while Carlos works to unlock his.

We then rejoin the action back in Florida, where there’s a tidy qualifying result at the Miami Grand Prix – P7 for Alex, P6 for Carlos.

The chaos of the Miami Lego Drivers' Parade gets some attention

Sunday delivers solid points (P5 and P9), though as the episode shows, we weren’t entirely satisfied. There’s honest reflection on execution, communication and those fine margins that make the difference between “good” and “great.”

The bumps along the way aren’t glossed over either, including a fiery DNS in Austria that none of us needed reminding of.

One of the most revealing moments comes away from the circuit with a candid lunch between Carlos and James in New York. No raised voices, just realism. They both knew the potential in the car, and they both knew we were letting opportunities slip. Things had to be tightened up.

A reset in Mallorca follows, where Caco draws comparisons to his first year at McLaren in 2019, where he needed patience before a turning point arrived in Baku.

Cue the 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

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“I believe life sometimes gets tougher before something good is about to come,” Carlos says. You don’t need to be a Netflix producer to know what’s coming.

P2 after a dramatic qualifying secured our first front-row start in four years. Suddenly the tone shifts from hope to tension. Can we convert this great starting position?

The race becomes a pressure cooker, after a clean getaway it’s all about the pit stop phases. George Russell jumps ahead through the stop, and now Kimi Antonelli is closing fast.

But this time, it sticks. Carlos holds on and the podium is secured, the belief is rewarded and the team is united, with Alex joining the podium celebrations with the team despite his own tough weekend.

A champagne moment for Carlos in Baku

Don’t forget to vote in our Drive to Survive poll to secure five WClub points.

Season 8 of Formula 1: Drive to Survive is streaming now, exclusively on Netflix.

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