Archive for January, 2005
“World Championship Review” (2000)
The first two official season review DVDs were produced by Sony, and hence come labelled “compatibile with Playstation 2″.
Unfortunately, they are also produced using an odd menu system which makes navigating them unnecessarily difficult.
The footage is superb, though, and there’s plenty of it. 4hrs 15m on this discs, though that does include quite a bit [...]
“Who Else But Schumacher?” (1994)
The title of this video is not in the best of taste, given the death of Ayrton Senna in the third round of the [...]
“What a Class Act” (Video, 2001)
The 2001 review video is exceptionally bad, especially given that the semi-official 2001 (which is very hard to find) is pretty good, and they both have the same material to work from.
The video has the same flaws that many others from this era have: the commentary is faintly ridiculous and there is to be too [...]
“Two Till The End” (1984)
Although McLaren were dominant it was a close season - the closest ever, indeed, with Niki Lauda sneaking the title from team-mate Prost by just half a point.
The video review provides a good dose of retro turbo action (though there were some unexciting races) and some very interesting historical events.
The legendary wet Monaco race when [...]
“The Official Review” (2001)
The 2001 season review DVD, again produced by Sony, is something of an oddity. It is not available as a commercial retail DVD, [...]
“The Official End of Season Review” (1983)
Though controversial the 1983 season was quite entertaining and, with ground effects banned, one that did not see any drivers suffer serious injury.
What a shame, then, that the technical quality of the footage is not very good, and the commentary is simply appalling.
Apparently trying to be funny, the commentators (Brian Kriesky and Barbara Rosenblat) act [...]
“The Official End of Season Review” (1982)
The 1982 season was probably the most important of the nineteen-eighties but for all the wrong reasons.
While the sport tore itself apart politically (the year began with a driver’s strike) the excessively fast ground effect cars were killing people - namely the great Gilles Villeneuve and Italian novice Riccardo Paletti.
Pre-dating modern sensitivities, both accidents are [...]
“The Champion on the Track” (1999)
This was the championship it seemed no-one wanted to win and the review video suitably captures all of the action: Hakkinen and Schumacher’s various race-losing crashes, McLaren’s lap-one blunder in Austria and, of course, Schumacher’s leg-breaking Silverstone crash.
And the footage is excellent, with plenty of illuminating and interesting pictures from FOCA digital television.
But from the [...]
“Start to Finish” (1981)
This is as early as the official FOCA reviews stretch back, and it shows. The 1981 season review video is disjointed and narrated rather poorly by the nevertheless very well-informed F1 pundit Simon Taylor. It’s a shame because aside from the politicking and the sad events of Zolder (where one mechanic was killed and another [...]
“Senna Fights Back” (1993)
Despite the title, this video does not focus as narrowly on Senna as the 1992 tape does on Mansell. And nor does it [...]
