In early 2023 Pole Position was contacted by sound designer Gabriel Gutiérrez. The request? To record authentic race cars for the Netflix miniseries Senna – a biographical drama following the life of famed Brazilian driver, and three-time F1 world champion, Ayrton Senna. We had a talk with Pole’s Mats and Max, who shared some valuable knowledge, about how to find and record rare cars.

Max, I know you are a long-time Formula One fanatic. What were your initial thoughts when Pole was approached with this request?

Max: I have been following Formula One since I was a small kid, I think one of my really early memories is of Swedish driver Ronnie Peterson’s accident at Imola in 1978. I have been lucky to follow some exciting eras of the sport with drivers like Senna, Prost, Mansell, Schumacher, Häkkinen, Vettel and later on Hamilton and Verstappen. When Pole Position (guess where that name came from) eventually got into game audio, racing games were the first jobs we did and how we managed to make a name for ourselves in the industry. Obviously getting to record F1 cars has always been on my bucket list, so when Gabriel reached out and this ended up on our table, it was a dream come true.

The miniseries covers a broad period of Senna’s career—from his karting days to his ten years in Formula One—and features several different cars. It must have required quite an effort to find them?

Max: I managed most of the sourcing myself, a bit on the side from my daily work at Pole, only since I was so excited about the request. Despite a huge network that we have built over the years sourcing cars, it turned out to be extremely difficult, but also very rewarding. I got to talk to so many exciting people, mechanics and engineers from that era, owners of some of the amazing cars, directors of collections and museums and many more. Among the most encouraging and helpful people in my process to find the cars, were ex-Ferrari GT racer Tony Ring and Ayrton’s niece Bianca Senna, who today is the CEO of Senna Brands who makes sure Senna’s legacy lives on. We also got some fantastic help from Chris Dinnage at Classic Team Lotus, not only by helping us with the Lotus T72 recordings, but also with connecting us with other owners. In the end, finding the cars was a joint effort by Netflix and us. And recording the cars would never have been possible without the endless dedication by post-production supervisor Gabriel who understood the importance of having the real sounds in the show, and therefore constantly convinced the production to get the fundings to achieve this goal. In the end, we had recorded 11 cars at five different occasions in three different countries (see list at the end of the blog if interested in which cars).

When the cars were located, what followed next? What are the things you need to consider when planning a recording session with a historic F1 car?

Max: To be well prepared makes all the difference when it comes to recording sessions with many unknowns. For each session we had to find out what the circumstances were on location, if there would be other cars driving at the same time causing disturbances and limiting our track access due to safety constraints, if we had time slots on track to adopt to or if we had exclusive access, if there would be a crowd and speaker making noise, what the risk of bad weather was and what our options were in case of rain and so on. We also had to plan the equipment carefully, since each car is different, and we had to be prepared for every situation.

We eventually came to the conclusions that we were limited to one recorder per car, meaning eight microphones to cover cockpit, engine, intake and exhausts. It was also crucial that the equipment was fairly small, light and slim. We decided that all recorders had to be 32-bit, since we have learnt from previous sessions that you cannot always monitor the levels when the recorders are mounted and switched on, meaning if the car breaks down after the first stint, the recording of that first stint must be perfect. At Donington we had to record three cars during three time slots of 20 minutes each during the day – out of which one was cancelled because of rain. Luckily, we had prepared so that we could have three cars rigged at the same time, so we could record them all simultaneously during each time slot. Ah well, if they had all run, that is, the McLaren V10 did not start, unfortunately…

Formula racing cars are designed to be especially efficient – the cars are very compact, and every centimeter counts. With this in mind, what challenges came with it in terms of rigging microphones and recorders?

Max: The cars are collector items, some of them in mint condition and worth millions of dollars. At one point during a session in the US they showed us to the garage where these three classic McLaren F1 cars stood lined up, probably worth around 25 million dollars altogether, and they just told us to do our thing and to close the garage when we were done. Surreal!

First of all, we have a very gentle gaffer tape that we use when attaching microphones. It’s very rare that it causes any damage, but you can never be completely sure, especially considering the heat factor as well. The most important thing here is to be very careful, and completely transparent with the owners about the risk and if anything happens. Once you have decided where the recorder should be mounted, you need to get all cables to run to that position too. And when you run the cables, you need to consider all kinds of safety precautions, like not having anything that the driver can get tangled up in if he needs to leave the car urgently, and to not have any cables getting tangled up in any of the rods going from the pedals to the engine and brakes, not having cables or microphones exposed to too much heat, and so on. You need to make sure to discuss it all and have it approved by the mechanics before you send out the car on the track. Microphones and recorders were also secured using zip ties and luggage straps. In order to avoid scratches on the car from vibrations, we used an old yoga carpet that we cut up in pieces and used as a dampener in between surfaces.

Because of the tight spaces under the car bodies we bought enough DPA cable extensions so that we would not have to use normal-sized XLR-cables at all during recording. On top of that we had them all going through heat insulation that we bought from a special car parts dealer.

With this setup we could feel rather sure about the equipment, but despite all these measures one or two mics did break anyway at some points during the sessions. This is nothing that overturns the whole project of course, since we are careful to mic as many positions as possible there is always one or two that make up for a lost microphone. But still it is a bit nerve wrecking.

Max: Recorders were decided based on what we could fit. In some cases it was Sound Devices MixPre-10 IIs in the most strange places, and in some cases it was Zoom F8s and F6s hidden beneath the side pods. In one case, on the Benetton car, we had the recorder next to the driver, on his left side. But since the cockpit space is so limited, and made it almost impossible for him to turn the steering wheel, and in order to get these cars into a corner you need a fair amount of speed, so it was not an optimal recorder placement and something we avoided after that time. For all exterior recordings, we had our usual gear position around the track, Holophone, Sennheiser MKH 8040 in ORTF, Sanken CSS-5, Sennheiser MKH 8060, Neumann RSM 191, Sennheiser MKH 418-S into our Sound Devices Scorpio, Sound Devices 702, Zoom F8 and some other recorders.

And during recording, everything ran smoothly, right? What other challenges did you encounter when recording?

Mats: The owners and teams put a lot of trust in us to not damage their cars and it’s crucial that we don’t break that confidence. Some of these cars are more or less invaluable and few people get as close to them as we were allowed to, so that’s a trust we need to honor.

For recording cars such as these it’s super essential that you can control the recording gain comfortably because there is a very good chance that you don’t get to check the levels in between takes for various reasons. You really want to record the first startup of each car. There is no second chance to that, and if the levels are wrong then it can really go badly. On another instance, when we recorded the Lotus at the Lotus test track in Hethel, UK, the car broke down because of a loose screw that was sucked into the engine. We got three laps before it gave up, which was kind of enough, but we would of course have wanted more, so being off with the gain-settings on an instance like that is not an option. It just has to work.

We did have alternatives though, just to be on the safe side, which also turned out to be a rather lucky shot. For the sessions we also brought along for safety a Zoom F6, which is also a 32-bit recorder. It’s really tiny and can be run for a long time with internal AA-batteries. This recorder we were able to put on top of the side air intake of the Leyton House car. There would not have been any other place on the whole vehicle where we could have put any other recorder, and this one was small enough to fit in the narrow gap between body and chassis. This particular setup had its quirks as well of course because the car-body was taken off the car during preparations, during which time we could put the recorder in place and attach all cables that would run to it. But then we had to be really vigilant to make sure that we were there to turn it on and press record before the body was put back in place, because if we were too late or doing something else, then no recording.

On many occasions we had to take the recorders out of their bags and tie everything together: battery, Nanolokit and all. For this purpose we brought a lot of foam material of different thickness and sizes that we would stuff around the recorders as best as we could manage. They did get somewhat exposed to the elements so we needed to protect them as much as possible. Two of the MixPre-10 IIs had to go to the repair shop after the sessions because of loose parts, so they did take quite some beating during the drives.

Max: We knew that we would have very little time for corrections if something didn’t work, so we had to go for rather safe bets. The DPA 4062s are a good option when it comes to handling high SPL, so they were a given option. And we went for 32-bit for the onboards, since we knew we would have no chance to monitor the levels, and we didn’t even know if we would get more than one shot per car. So getting the levels wrong was never an option, so we had to go for 32-bit. For the exterior recordings, it was not as crucial. But it was sometimes hard to know if the microphone or recorder was clipping or if it was how the cars actually sounded. They have a way of ripping and distorting the air as they pass, similar to a jet fighter.

Mats: We were able to put the recorders in all kinds of places, one of the more intriguing ones being in a gap inside the backfin, at the absolute rear of the car. The recorder was more or less dangling in the air, only attached to the car by cable ties. But on one other occasion the driver actually had the recorder in his lap and was driving the car with one hand. That was truly generous of him, and if I may say so, bold. But mostly we were able to keep cables, microphones and recorders pretty out of the way of the drivers. We put DPAs in the cockpits in front of the steering wheel, but they are so small that they never were in the way of the driver, and all cables could be led back to where the recorder was placed. What could happen though was that they ran the risk of accidentally getting knocked out of their places by the driver’s hands.

Max: We have a very long experience of recording fast vehicles, almost 20 years now. Wind has always been the biggest challenge, and we have found our ways. It’s a combination of choosing the right microphone, how you position it and what kind of shielding you use. We have all sorts of solutions at hand, pieces of fake fur, boundary layers from DPA and even things like paper coffee mugs from your local cafe that we cut up and use pieces from. All the equipment has to be secured rigidly, so cables have to be secured using gaffer and small zip ties all along the stretch they cover. Heat is another major factor on race cars, so we needed to make sure things wouldn’t catch fire either. And to avoid vibrations and scratches we used pieces of the old yoga carpet as mentioned previously. Not the prettiest solution visually, but hey – if it works it works! The trade off would be which microphones you can mount on the cars. The DPAs sound great, but having a wider variety is always beneficial, in order to get more nuances to choose from when mixing. But there is just no way to fit a Shure VP88 under the hood of these cars.

For the exterior recordings, what kind of access did you have to the pits and track to capture passes, start ups, shut downs, etc?

Mats: The circumstances were a bit different for the different locations, but we were able to get very good exterior material at all sessions. This was of course extremely important for Gabriel (lead sound designer for the tv show) because the on-track action is such a big part of the Senna TV-show and there is no way that you can fake these sounds using other source-recordings. It has to be authentic to be believable.

At Donington in the UK, which was the first of the sessions we did, we were invited to participate during a huge 3-day event with lots of audience and commotion going on at the same time. They did let us come rather close to the track, but it was a long walk from the pit stalls where we were rigging the cars over to the place at the first corner where I was to stand with the shotgun. If that’s a measure for hard work I got a very high score on the stepcounter that day. Around the track there were loudspeakers placed evenly, broadcasting a kind of live radio-show with commentators that were speaking constantly during the driving. So I had to find a spot as far away from any of the speakers because otherwise I would end up with not much else than talking.

Besides that there were a bunch of other old F1-cars driving around the track at the same time that our cars were recording. To distinguish those in post production it took quite some detective work, which was helped by the Nanolokit time-syncing devices that we use. With the aid of those we could match the onboard and exterior recorders and figure out when the cars were passing the track-side microphones.

What was it like to listen to all these unique cars back in the studio when the recordings were wrapped up?

Max: It’s always satisfying to listen back to recordings, and also a bit nerve-wrecking until you have determined that everything has worked out (hopefully). In this case it was also with a lot of curiosity – what does it sound like inside the intake when it opens up? What is it that the driver hears? Very cool and exciting to listen through the different microphones!

When the series premiered on Netflix, what was it like watching it?

Max: It was with great pride that we watched the series, and with a huge respect for the amazing work put in by Gabriel on the audio, but also the effort made by everyone to tell Senna’s story. Our part of it was just on a corner, but it feels good to know that we did everything we could to make the engines justice – our way to honor Senna.

The cars recorded:

• Benetton B190 (V8), Leyton House CG901 (V8) and McLaren MP4/7 (V12, that didn’t start) at Donington, UK
• Lotus 97T (V6) and Toleman TG184 (straight 4) at Hethel, UK with Classic Team Lotus
• McLaren MP4/4 (V6), MP4/5 (V10) and MP4/6 (V12) in Joliet, US
• Formula Ford and FF1600 at Gelleråsen, Sweden
• Historic Kart (DAP72) at Skövde MK

Want to learn more of the making of Netflix’s “Senna”?