Rating the F1 race edits - A review of the FOM highlight videos from F1 in 2011
Published by Jonathan Crummett
When I started following Formula 1 half way through the 2009 season the race edits were all I really got to see of the races. Starting Wednesday’s after a race I would incessantly keep checking the website to see if the newest video was available. Even now, though I try to seek out the actual races a bit more, even if it is a day or two later, the race edits still make up what I see of most of the races.
A month ago, when I wrote my first Sidepodcast comment on the Rate the Race article for the Brazilian GP, it only took a few synapses to fire in order to get to 'Rate the F1 race edits'.
Play that funky music
Thus, I set out to watch all the edits again - and did so in two sittings. It always seemed to me that the videos had a lot more 'other than the race' footage in them. I decided this round through that I would time how much race footage there was starting with the extinguishing of five red lights and ending at the crossing of the finish line - roughly.
To be more accurate I could have stopped and started the watch every time there was a cut to the pit crew, fans, or some anxious girlfriend, but that would have been a hassle. Regardless, it turned out that most of the edits were more than seventy-five percent race footage.
| Race | Time | Action | Song | Artist | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 3:22 | 70.3% | Good to Be Here | Rooster | 6.5 |
| Malaysia | 2:48 | 83.3% | Higher Ground | Red Hot Chili Peppers | 5.75 |
| China | 2:53 | 85.0% | The Last Fight | Bullet for My Valentine | 5.5 |
| Turkey | 2:54 | 82.6% | The Consequence | You Me At Six | 5.25 |
| Spain | 2:35 | 83.2% | Lucky Ones | We Are the Ocean | 7 |
| Monaco | 2:41 | 78.9% | I Don't Care | Fall Out Boy | 7.25 |
| Canada | 3:10 | 72.1% | Broken Mirrors | Rise Against | 6.75 |
| Europe | 2:33 | 75.8% | What It Feels Like | We Are the Ocean | 4 |
| Great Britain | 2:44 | 76.8% | If You Don't Like It | Cinderella | 5 |
| Germany | 2:47 | 77.2% | Wait for Me | Rise Against | 7 |
| Hungary | 2:47 | 84.4% | Waiting | We Are the Ocean | 6.5 |
| Belgium | 3:21 | 74.6% | Promises | Nero | 7.25 |
| Italy | 2:31 | 77.4% | On Fire | New Device | 8 |
| Singapore | 2:52 | 75.6% | Louder (feat. Sian Evans) | DJ Fresh | 4 |
| Japan | 2:35 | 72.9% | You've Got it Comin' | New Device | 6 |
| Korea | 2:27 | 76.9% | Days Are Forgotten | Kasabian | 3 |
| India | 2:38 | 75.3% | Bite My Tongue (feat. Oli Sykes) | You Me At Six | 5 |
| Abu Dhabi | 2:44 | 84.6% | Stay Too Long | Plan B | 4.5 |
| Brazil | 2:36 | 71.1% | Diamond Eyes (Boom - Lay Boom - Lay Boom) | Shinedown | 5.75 |
I’m always excited to see what music is used in the race edits. In 2010, when the wife and I went to the race in Suzuka I brought along an HD Sony Bloggie thinking that I would get some footage and make my own video. It turned out that an edit made with footage taken from the same turn (Spoon) isn’t really interesting. I had some Rage Against the Machine in mind, but the song that F1.com used by The Wombats was great - as well as a lot of the music used in 2010.
I had bought and downloaded a handful of the songs that were used last year such as The Wombats mentioned above, as well as The Dandy Warhols, Ellie Goulding (which my wife gives me a hard time for), and even Nickelback (which is pretty cool when set to video highlights of F1 cars body slamming each other)!
This year? Not so much. There were a few songs that were ok (Nero and Fall Out Boy), but on the whole I thought the music selection was pretty ho-hum. I didn’t download a single one of them.
Video games
Though I really started to burn out on watching video after video, experiencing them this way allowed me to discover something that they did very well - telling the story of Massa vs. Hamilton. This theme surfaced throughout the videos from the incident while exiting the pits in Turkey, to its ending where Hamilton’s gearbox gave up the fight in Brazil. At points it was as if I could see the frustration and incredulity of the drivers and teams personified in the cars themselves.
For the fun of it I threw my ratings over the top of Mr. C’s and Christine’s ratings for the season to see how they compare. From the looks of things a race edit can’t make a bad race exciting, but they sure can make a good race dull! I’m sorry all, I tried to like the Great Britian video, but the music was atrocious and any potential excitement from the beginning of the video petered out by the end. Heck, even Alonso sounded quite bored with it when he takes the checkered flag!
The 2011 race edits fell off compared to 2009 and 2010’s. I wonder how much of that is because of music and editing as opposed to the actual races. Here's to hoping that 2012 brings us better race... edits.
