“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, but was given away with early copies of the Formula One 2001 Playstation 2 game..
And it’s definitely worth hunting down because, although still blighted by the same clunky interface as the 2000 DVD, the footage quality is better and the manner in which it is assembled is vastly superior to the dire 2001 video. The races get proper reviews and there’s the usual plethora of video angles to choose from.
Again, as with the 2000 video, there’s no ‘play all’ option, nor is there much by way of introduction to the season or the individual races. The commentary is more functional than entertaining, but not as informed as it might be, and there’s rather too much footage of pit stops. But, then, 2001 was hardly a gem of a season.
All in all a decent package that was inexplicably not given a full release, and there is no official DVD at all for the 2002 season, which is ridiculous. As you can pick this up for a small price online it’s definitely worth hunting down.
Best bit: Juan Pablo Montoya’s move on Michsel Schumacher at Interlagos – a star is born.
F1Fanatic Verdict
Ah! I just realized something: this was Ben Edwards’ first stint as the F1 season review presenter. As far as I know, the VHS presenter was different, as Ben was only on the DVD. But FOM picked Ben over the VHS dude for 2002, and they’ve stuck with him since.