Tour de France Netflix documentary 2023: release date speculation and news

By Stan Portus

Published: Monday, 15 August 2022 at 12:00 am

In March 2022, Netflix announced it was partnering with A.S.O. to create a documentary series on the 2022 Tour de France.

France Télévisions, France’s national television broadcaster, will participate and the series will be produced by Quadbox, a joint venture between production company Quad and Box to box Films.

Box to Box films is the sports film producer behind Netflix’s incredibly popular Formula 1 series Drive to Survive.

Drive to Survive saw interest in Formula 1 increase substantially in 2020. According to global analytics company Nielson, an average of 2.7 million 16 to 35-year-olds became interested in F1 every month in the year beginning March 2000.

If Netflix’s Tour de France proves anywhere near as popular as Drive to Survive, there could be a huge increase in interest in the Tour de France and cycling more generally.

Netflix hasn’t revealed a great deal about the show as of yet, but keep reading to find out what we know so far.

What is the Tour de France Netflix documentary release date?

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The peloton at the Tour de France cycling along the Champs-Élysées.
Anne-Christine Poujoulat / Getty Images

An exact release date for Netflix’s Tour de France series is yet to be announced, but we do know the series will air in the first half of 2023.

We expect the series will be available to watch in late June. The 2023 edition of the Tour de France starts on Saturday 1 July in Bilbao, northern Spain. Netflix released season 4 of Drive to Survive a week before round 1 on the 2022 Formula 1 calendar and it’s not unfeasible the streaming giant will take the same approach with its Tour de France series.

France Télévisions is also set to release a documentary about the Tour a few days before the Grand Départs, so it makes sense that Netflix would time its release with this.

What is the Tour de France Netflix documentary about?

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Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard battling it out on stage 17 of the 2022 Tour de France.
Marco Bertorello / Getty Images

Netflix has said its Tour de France series will “follow as closely as possible all the actors of the Tour de France, from cyclists to team managers to understand the multiple stakes of a race”.

It promises to show the racing but also the ‘backstages’ of the eight teams involved, from how they prepare for the Grand Boucle’s stages to crossing the finish line.

Yann Le Moënner, director general of A.S.O., which organises the Tour de France, says the docuseries will show how the race poses the ‘ultimate challenge’ for its competitors through a narrative approach.

Laurent-Eric Le Lay, sports director at France Télévisions, says it will “allow everyone to experience part of the daily life of champions and teams”.

This is not dissimilar to Drive to Survive which, to a certain extent, dramatises the F1 season and provides behind-the-scenes footage fans wouldn’t usually see.

Cyclingnews has reported that 70 accreditations were issued for filming at the 2022 Tour de France for the series. Each of the eight teams involved is said to have had a dedicated film crew, while a separate crew tried to cover the broader story of the race.

Which teams are involved in the Tour de France Netflix documentary?

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Wout van Aert leading the peloton at the 2022 Tour de France.
Anne-Christine Poujoulat / Getty Images

There are eight WorldTour teams involved in the Tour de France Netflix documentary:

  • AG2R Citroën Team
  • Alpecin-Fenix
  • Bora-Hansgrohe
  • EF Education-EasyPost
  • Groupama-FDJ Cycling Team
  • Ineos Grenadiers
  • Team Jumbo-Visma
  • Team Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl

The major admission from this list is UAE Team Emirates, the team of Tadej Pogačar, who won the 2021 edition of the race and came second in 2022.

Team Jumbo-Visma’s inclusion in the documentary will provide insight into winner Jonas Vingegaard’s race. But if UAE Team Emirates and Pogačar were in the documentary we could see how the battle for first and second place played out from both sides.

One reason why UAE Team Emirates may have opted not to be in the documentary is teams were paid €50,000 to be involved, according to Cyclingnews.

Patrick Lefevere, general manager of Team Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl, described the sum as “peanuts” in Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad. UAE Team Emirates may have deemed the cash not enough to justify the disturbance of a film crew to its Tour proceedings.

What happened at the 2022 Tour de France?

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Jonas Vingegaard won the 2022 Tour de France.
Michael Steele / Getty Images

The 2022 Tour de France was the 109th edition of the race. It started with an individual time trial in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The race was touted as being a battle between defending champion Tadej Pogačar and the might of Team Jumbo-Visma, which played out from the off.

Team Jumbo-Visma controlled the race in the first week before Pogačar claimed the yellow jersey with two consecutive stage wins.

When the race hit the Alps, Team Jumbo-Visma challenged Pogačar’s lead and eventually broke the young Slovenian, with Jonas Vingegaard taking the lead.

Vingegaard defended his lead through the Pyrennes and cemented it on the final individual time trial.

Wout van Aert of Team Jumbo-Visma won the points classification and, alongside the yellow jersey, Vingegaard won the king of the mountains classification. This made the 2022 edition of the race the first time one team has won all three of the Tour de France jerseys since 1969.

Geraint Thomas of Ineos Grenadiers came third, continuing his success after winning the 2022 Tour de Suisse.

The 2022 Tour de France also saw climate protests due to the heatwave, which saw temperatures hit 40˚C while the race was happening.

A number of riders withdrew due to Covid-19, including Magnus Cort of EF Education-EasyPost, who animated the king of the mountains competition in the first week.

If the 2023 Tour de France is anywhere near as dramatic, the Netflix series should prove quite the watch.