How Netflix Built, and Recorded, the Race Cars of Senna

Any enthusiast who wants more car and racing stories told by the media wants to see the producers take effort to get things right—especially when the story being told is one of an icon. Netflix has a tall order to fill after announcing it would be filming a series about the life and racing career of Brazilian Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna. Netflix has been giving us a few sneak peeks leading up to the premiere on Friday, November 29, and the latest is the one that captured our attention most: How the cars came to be.

After all, if you are going to tell the story of Ayrton Senna, you have a lot of racing history to cover, from carting all the way to Formula 1, and all of the real cars are far too valuable to use for movie set props. So instead the production team partnered with Crespi Competition in Argentina to construct replicas of the car needed to tell the story. In total, 22 cars were built for the filming. That figure includes not only the cars that Senna drove in his career but also the cars driven by his main rivals.

The cars of the film start in Senna’s Formula Ford era, which also gives some hints as to where the story will pick up; Senna had extensive racing prior to jumping to full-sized race chassis. Many of the production cars were built with filming in mind rather than outright speed, meaning that, though they look correct, underneath each iconic livery is modern running gear designed to work and be drivable at filming speeds, which are often much lower than real race speeds. While we only get a passing glance at one of the engines, it is clear the cars all sport four-cylinder engines. This creates the second problem when filming a movie like this: The sound.

To recreate the proper sound, the team got their hands the real cars and put microphones on them—everywhere. The clips in this preview show the real, era-correct cars running on track covered in wires and recording equipment. That sound is critical to capturing the attention of those viewers who have more than a passing interest in Senna. He raced through multiple eras of F1, starting out in 1984 piloting a Toleman TG184 powered by a turbocharged four-cylinder all the way to the legendary McLaren MP4/5 with its howling V-10. Get the V-10 sounds wrong, and fans will grab their pitchforks.

This clip gives us only a 3-minute look into the production, so what we know for sure is still slim pickings, but if the effort captured here is true to the rest of Netflix’s Senna series, then our hopes are high. Be sure to tune in later this week to see for yourself. We know we will be.