Yet even if our leaders lifted restrictions last night, reopened the pubs, endorsed raves and allowed you to hug your gran, I'd have probably waited a day to venture outdoors.

That's because Netflix's documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive premiered its third season last night.

In short, Drive to Survive follows the Formula One teams across a season of more than 20 races, filming the travelling circus around the world and getting initial reactions to controversies, crashes and, at least this year, coronavirus.

For many, it's a jumping-off point into the motorsport world - a highly-dramatised depiction of a racing series labelled "boring" by purists.

For others, it's a peek behind the curtain to a sport they follow religiously, but cannot get the paddock reaction that the lucky few have.

But let's talk figures.

The series debuted in March 2019, detailing the 2018 Formula One World Championship season, and its effect was felt by the time the second season was due to start.

Nearly 10 per cent of UK Netflix viewers watched the series within its first 28 days - 62 per cent of new fans were under the age of 35 - while F1 had a social media growth of 99 per cent between 2019 and 2020, although some of that has to be credited to their improved media team.

The days of sport being something you flick on for a couple of hours on the weekend followed by some questionable punditry seems primitive. The sports documentary has kicked the industry into a new gear.

By no means is this some revolutionary idea thought up in the past decade - sports documentaries have existed for a long time - but streaming services and online content has changed the game considerably.

Episodic documentaries are very "in" at the moment.

McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo said Drive to Survive put the sport on the map in the United States - a market that former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone failed to tap into after decades at the helm - with the Australian driver only noticing when he was regularly recognised in the streets after the documentary aired.

The tide turned when Liberty Media bought out Ecclestone in 2017, turning an insular sport full of seemingly-drab personalities into one that embraces the media and shows off its assets.

A briefing of driver Lando Norris from the PR team during the race weekend in Australia last year perfectly summarises the old and the new.

Norris is being fed what to say to the press during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak - what he has to say is very neutral, reading like a press release, while the documentary shows him to be an adorable immature driver with a real underdog mentality.

Before, Norris' personality could have easily been portrayed as bland, yet the company's embrace of social media and external media outlets has made him one of the biggest stars in the sport.

Having had the opportunity to work at an F1 race in 2016, the contrast between then and now is stark, and the media personalities are not just on the grid. 

Haas' greatest asset is arguably not any of their drivers, but its team principal - effectively motorsport's version of a manager.

Gunther Steiner has become a bit of a cult hero on Drive to Survive, receiving more air time than he usually would on a race weekend, partly due to his ability to fill up a swear jar within a matter of minutes.

At risk of sounding like I'm on the payroll for Liberty Media, let's move onto the Chicago Bulls.

The Last Dance documented the Michael Jordan years at the Bulls, regarded as one of the greatest teams in National Basketball Association (NBA) history.

Anecdotally, I have not been interested in basketball since the lukewarm 2002 film Like Mike, yet the series hooked me in and many others across the world who were twiddling our thumbs during the early months of the pandemic.

It filled a gap for ESPN with the absence of the NBA and accumulatively, each episode brought in a live viewership in the US of 5.6 million people on average, excluding on-demand streams.

Globally, the series was watched by 23.8 million people outside the US within the first month of release on Netflix.

Memorabilia associated with Michael Jordan, his team mates, and even his rivals soared in price following the documentary, and now the 58-year-old is probably at his most relevant since his playing days.

But it would be foolish to think these documentaries are a win-win for all involved. 

Sunderland 'Til I Die is a Shakespearean tragedy, allowing viewers to witness the downfall of one of England's most well-supported football clubs.

Despite looking to bounce back to the Premier League in season one, a culmination of calamity and financial mismanagement from a team led by former chief executive Martin Bain, condemned them to the third tier of English football.

Infamously, Bain was the only person to use a cryogenic chamber bought by the club, costing six figures despite their financial position.

He was replaced by Stewart Donald and the David Brent-esque Charlie Methven, who seemed more interested in turning the Stadium of Light into Ibiza than getting results on the pitch.

Former manager Chris Coleman expressed his displeasure with filming during his tenure and there is little to suggest it helped the club aside from attracting casual international fans.

With a series on American football star Tom Brady also in the works, the audience is there for more documentary series in the future across sport - and there seems to be some rules to success.

Control the narrative, make it a retrospective documentary instead of live if you can, and most importantly - don't be Sunderland A.F.C.