Earlier this year, on the 30th anniversary of triple F1 champion Ayrton Senna’s death, Netflix announced a new six-part biopic series, simply called Senna, charting his rise to the top of the sport. Now, we’ve got a UK and Irish release date for the series, which will go live on the streaming platform on 29 November.
Alongside the release date announcement, Netflix has unveiled a second trailer, giving us a more in-depth look at the series.
The series stars Brazilian actor Gabriel Leone as Senna. The cast also includes Pâmela Tomé as Senna’s girlfriend Xuxa Meneghel, Matt Mella as his teammate and rival Alain Prost, and Patrick Kennedy as McLaren team boss Ron Dennis.
Other F1 figures that’ll feature in the show include drivers Nicki Lauda, James Hunt and Nelson Piquet and notable sporting figures such as Jean-Marie Balestre, Sir Frank Williams and Sid Watkins. Senna’s family has been involved in the creation of the show.
The first trailer showed a condensed version of the 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix. Widely regarded as one of Senna’s greatest drives, he controlled the field in worsening conditions to take victory in front of a packed home crowd, even with his gearbox failing towards the end of the race.
Trailer two is more in-depth, and in addition to the racing clips, gives us a look at how it’ll portray Senna’s relationships off the track with the likes of Prost, Lauda and Meneghel. We also see clips of what looks like the rain-soaked 1984 Monaco Grand Prix, in which Senna, in his rookie season, battled the conditions in a mid-field Toleman, hauling it from 13th on the grid to second place.
Matt Mella as Alain Prost and Gabriel Leone as Ayrton Senna in Senna
Senna will be far from the first piece of media charting the Brazilian’s life and untimely death, with a critically lauded documentary, also called Senna, released in 2010. Senna the series, meanwhile, will likely include some degree of fictionalisation (The Gentlemen’s Kaya Scodelario will play a fictional journalist), but looks set to bring the driver’s famous and tragic story to a new audience.
