The Gentleman Driver

In my opinion, documentaries should be about showcasing extraordinary things. Highlighting stories that not many people know about or a deep dive into an incredible event. There's nothing extraordinary about 4 rich guys buying their way into racing. I'd be more interesting in a origin story of any of the professional drivers featured than how the main group spent millions to pretend to be professional. It's a 5 from me on cinematography only.

While this documentary was not a thrill a minute it brought to light everything involved with being an amateur LMP driver, with interviews from several top "gentleman drivers" from the reasons they decided to become one, to the forces that drive them.. pun intended, lol just a deep dive into the minds of Gentleman Drivers

(Flash Review)

For those who like auto racing, specifically European auto racing, that is where gentleman drivers are found. What is a gentleman driver? They are very good and very wealthy amateur race car drivers who race endurance races alongside the highly skilled professionals. They bring the lion's share of the funding for their teams in order to compete. There is some decent insight into that lifestyle and how they hone their skills to not embarrass the team during races as well as some good racing footage. Each gentleman driver interviewed talks about their background and how they can afford to race. Yet there is a bit too much of product or company plugging. But they are businessmen so I bet they angled for that. Cinematically, it is ok and informative yet not super creative.

This movie is great for the casual motorsport fan as well as someone completely new to motorsports. For me, the most exciting part was listening and learning about the thought process behind some of the most successful business people and how their way of thinking translated to a very unique sport. Whether it's Ed Brown, Paul Dalla Lana, Mike Guasch, or Ricardo Gonzalez, each is massively successful and has a unique thought process that we can learn from to improve in business and our own working lives. The racing side makes it massively exciting and shows a very clear view of the exciting dynamics behind a sport that is oftentimes hard to touch & feel because of the many details involved and complicated technology.

Thought this would be more about how challenging it is to drive a race car as amateurs.

Instead there was about 45+ minutes footage of some extremely wealthy men getting to plug their businesses and how driven and determined they are, and how everything is about winning and making money etc etc. Pretty loathsome stuff.

It's really dull listening to people you can't relate to, bragging about how amazing they are.

I hoped it would reveal how they have to train physically and practice in sims etc. This documentary didn't suggest it was very hard at all, except you need to have money and turn up to the races on time.

Not a good image for motorsport unfortunately.

The phrase "gentleman drivers" is very outdated as well. If a young girl was watching this documentary it's hardly promoting a sport that is accessible to them.

I know it's not these guys' fault that they're called gentleman drivers, but still, it's the 21st century and I think this sort of documentary will just alienate more people from motor racing than it will do to promote it.