'F1: Drive to Survive' season 3 episode 1 review: Let's meet Daddy Stroll

Season 3, episode 1 of the hit Netflix series "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" is titled "Cash is King." As the title suggests, there's a huge focus on Racing Point owner Lawrence Stroll. The episode also gives an inside look into how the season was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In pre-season testing, all the other teams on the grid were shocked to see how similar the Racing Point car is to the 2019 championship-winning Mercedes. Unsurprisingly, the car was also extremely fast. The other team principals were nervous and almost all of them were seen questioning the legality of the Racing Point's design. Everyone knows about the protest and penalties that followed, and the issue certainly did not endear Stroll to the F1 community.

What's great about this episode is how much time Lawrence Stroll got on camera. He has always been known as the billionaire "Daddy Stroll," but it's refreshing to see the humanity behind the millions. The episode showed how nervous the team executives were upon having been taken over by a new boss. Stroll was able to express his passion about the sport and more importantly, the episode righty focused on the fact that his son, Lance, is a legit race car driver.

Much has been said about Lance and the F1 seat that many believe he doesn't deserve, but this episode made sure that fans look past the billions in the bank and focus on the driver inside that helmet. Simply put, Lance has been racing since he was six years old and he has won numerous races and various titles in different racing divisions since then.

The episode then moves on to Australia, where the first Grand Prix of the season was scheduled to take place. It seems completely surreal now to see everyone crowded together without any masks on. It felt even more chilling to hear the drivers and team members talking about the possibility of some people testing positive for the novel coronavirus.

It simply seems unthinkable now that they all flew into Melbourne without having every single person tested first. As we all know, the race was eventually cancelled and the season was thrown into shambles. The episode shows exactly how much effort it took for F1 management to even manage to start and complete the season.

The uncertainty at the end of the episode bring us back to the same point a year ago, and while F1 has managed to survive and race on, it' s a chilling reminder that almost exactly a year later, much of the world is still deep in this coronavirus crisis.