F1 video online - The scarce pickings of official Formula One footage on the web
Published by Christine
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
Formula1.com Season Highlights
After each race, the official F1 website releases a short video - 5 minutes or so - with the best bits of the action compiled into a packed watch. They are really well edited and the music over the top has clearly been picked to have the best effect. The season finale one is both brilliant and heartbreaking. Each video has provided a nice reminder of the races throughout the year, but now the season is over, it's nice to look back and remember the highs and lows of such a frenetic year.
ITV have provided the F1 coverage for the UK (and a lot of other syndicated countries) for over a decade, but have now lost the rights to the BBC for 2009. Nevertheless, ITV say their site will remain active, and they have so far kept up to date with the news. They've also kept their video section current as well. Throughout the season, highlights of each weekend were available, but now it looks like they have been replaced with feature videos instead. There are some interviews, and footage from the 2008 launches (presumably we'll see some 2009 launches when they start in January), plus Martin Brundle's F1 Insight series which was shown on the TV coverage.
This page is packed with news and features, but down the right hand side, there are Formula 1 videos to be enjoyed. There are some features here that aren't available on the other sites, like The Factory. That show is shown on Eurosport, and is a behind the scenes documentary on Williams. It's split up into several parts on the Yahoo site, but it's all available to watch for free. There are also short interviews and news updates available as well.
Of course, you can always put a search into YouTube to try and find what you are looking for. However, FOM are very aware of their content on YouTube and will quite often pull it down before you get a chance to see it. The older stuff, pre-1970s is available in all it's glory, but some of the newer stuff is harder to find.
