F1 Fanatic

This was the championship it seemed no-one wanted to win and the review video suitably captures all of the action: Mika Hakkinen and Michael 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 very beginning this video threatens to disappoint. The opening montage is very Ferrari-focussed and there is a general fixation on the championship battle at the expense of developments further down the field.

And, once again, the commentary is very, very annoying. What makes it worse is that it starts to seem that these lapses are by design.

Many of the pre-DVD era FOCA videos suffer from ‘sameyness’ and a general lack of imagination in presentation. This is no exception.

Once again dull packaging and false, forced commentary make for a waste of otherwise great material.

Best bit: Johnny Herbert’s against-the-odds win at the Nurburgring: his last and Stewart’s only victory.

F1 Fanatic Verdict

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