South Africa to UAE: How a Netflix show inspired these brothers to attend Abu Dhabi F1

While The Last Dance, the 2020 Netflix docuseries, brought back the wonderful memories of Michael Jordan’s greatest moments in his final season at Chicago Bulls, another sports series on the popular streaming service inspired a pair of South African brothers to board a flight from Pretoria to the UAE for the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix.

Now this may sound stranger than fiction, but for Chislon Pillay and his brother, Samuel Muchenje, watching ‘Formula One: Drive to Survive’ on Netflix was a life-changing moment as sports lovers.

“Being South Africans, it was always rugby, football and cricket that we loved the most,” Chislon told the Khaleej Times at the Fan Zone, proudly pointing to his Proteas jersey.

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It’s not that they had never followed Formula One before the Netflix show. “Yes, we did, after all, our country also had a Formula One race in the past. But the last race in South Africa was in 1993, much before we were born,” Chislon, 25, said.

Samuel, a 23-year-old IT specialist, then revealed how the docuseries got them hooked into Formula One.

“That series changed everything for us. It was an amazing show” he said.

“From the first episode to the last, the thrill, the drama, the tension, you know, every single time, the drivers go for practice and qualifying sessions, and then when they go to the race, your heart is actually racing.”

Having completely fallen under the spell of that Netflix series, both brothers started watching the F1 races religiously on the television.

But they had never attended a race until they arrived in the UAE last week.

“We decided to come to Abu Dhabi because this was the first F1 race we watched on TV in 2021,” said Chislon, who is an engineer by profession.

“The final race of that 2021 season in Abu Dhabi was epic, we will never forget that battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.”

The tussle for the 2021 drivers’ world championship in Abu Dhabi was as riveting as the drama in that Netflix series.

“Since then, we always wanted to come to Abu Dhabi. So we planned this trip only and only for this F1 race. We bought the F1 tickets first, flight tickets next,” Chislon said.

But the Formula One race was not the only reason they would cherish their UAE trip.

“I would say our whole experience is fantastic. Apart from this wonderful event, the most impressive thing about this country is the safety,” said Samuel.