Watch: Tour de France unveils new trailer for Netflix series, out 8 June

A new, official trailer for the upcoming Netflix documentary series Tour de France: Unchained was released online on Wednesday. 

The highly-anticipated series, produced by Quadbox and Box to Box Films, the makers of F1: Drive to Survive, follows seven teams at the 2022 Tour de France, with exclusive behind-the-scenes access. 

The name has now been confirmed as "Unchained"; previously, it was listed as "Untitled Tour de France Docuseries".

The eight-part series will be available to stream on Netflix on 8 June, coinciding with this year’s Critérium du Dauphiné, the key precursor to the Tour. 

The new trailer, shared by the Tour de France and the participating teams, opens with an image of Tom Pidcock riding solo through the masses on Alpe D’Huez, where he claimed victory on stage 12 last year. It then continues, with dramatic music and voice overs, to sum up the concept of the Tour de France. “It’s the world’s toughest race,” one person says. 

Also included in the one-minute video are snippets inside the team cars and buses, as well as on-bike footage and interviews with team managers. It is understood that eight teams agreed to give exclusive access to Netflix camera crews for the series: AG2R Citroën, Alpecin-Deceuninck, Bora-Hansgrohe, EF Education-EasyPost, Groupama-FDJ, Ineos Grenadiers, Jumbo-Visma and Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl. 

According to reports, Netflix covered the production costs of €8 million to make the series, paying a total of €1 million to the different parties involved, with teams ending up with about €62,000 each. The streaming platform is also working on a documentary about British road champion Mark Cavendish, who holds the record for the number of stage wins at the Tour de France, tied with Eddy Merckx on 34. 

Earlier this year, a different trailer for the new Tour de France series emerged at the Mobile Live World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. It was twice as long as the latest one and incorporated footage from past editions, as well as from other races, namely Julian Alaphilippe’s crash at Strade Bianche last year. 

The previous trailer, understood to be a working draft, used a different title for the series, ‘Tour de France: Au cœur du peloton’ (Inside the peloton). The official title of the English-language version has since been revealed as ‘Tour de France: Unchained’. 

When the new docuseries was announced last March, Yann le Moënner, CEO of ASO, the organiser of the Tour de France, said: “We are proud of this partnership with Netflix, France Télévisions and the Tour de France teams, which will offer fans a unique immersion behind the scenes. 

“Through a narrative approach, which is additive to the competition itself, the public will be able to discover how the Tour de France represents the ultimate challenge for the competitors ; in particular in terms of suffering, pushing their limits and team spirit. This project is part of our overall ambition to make our sport more accessible and meet an even wider audience.”

You can watch the new trailer below.