In the US F-1 is not really a thing and I've never been a sports guy. However, a while back I stumbled across F-1 WGP for Nintendo 64 when trying to find other older racing games to play and I got addicted. Got into it enough that I did get an F-1 TV subscription in order to watch things with onboard cams. I very much dislike commentary (except Murray, he's OK and entertaining). If I watch a modern race then it's with 3 monitors using Multiviewer: one with the broadcast race muted with subs, another with the stats/maps, and finally one for an onboard of someone interesting.

I saw there are "driver's eyes" and a few other F-1 Japanese specific discs. I'm curious which ones are onboards and if they are do they have Japanese commentary or is it just the onboard by itself? There are some that appear to be races or other things. Curious how much is in English, etc.

They also appear to be somewhat hard to find on here and I'm assuming you'd have to scour Yahoo! JP or similar places in order to get them.

If you scan Yahoo Japan for a few weeks, you'll see plenty of F1 Season's pop up. From what I've read the driver interviews are in English but everything else is Japanese. A more seasoned member may know and correct me if I misstated.

Here's a Youtube link for Driver's Eye F-1, hopefully it's available in your area.



Pioneer even put a HighVision LaserDisc[PILH-2001] which looks stunning. This was done 33 years ago...

Looks great. Drivers Eyes discs are what I hoped for. I'd have to look again at the LDDb information for seasons. Unsure if they have a separate audio channel of just the engine noises. I know on F1.TV for most races from the 90s they do.

F1 isn’t really a thing in America? Boy, I wish. I really wish we could go back to that. Now people in Nebraska have die hard opinions on race craft. People who have watched 10 races are talking about the “good old days” and now some bumper car clown in Indy “needs” a super license. It’s that effn Netflix show that drew them in.

From what I recall the Drivers Eyes series is multi-audio giving you the option to hear only the sounds of the track. Victory By Design is one of the only other things I can think of that understood that watchers of this kind of thing might not care as much for commentary and bad music as they do about the car. I uploaded a few to YouTube but FOMA took them all down except the one that was licensed footage from another company; Before 1987.

https://youtu.be/--iE2e3WXHA?si=nIKjPKsX7pGJQNpD

I have heard about the documentary, but I haven't watched it. I am also a noob to the whole thing. However, I can say that the pre-2000s era does seem more interesting for a variety of reasons. For me it seems the new era is heavily over-advertised. They even have LCD advertisements that rotate on the cars if you're viewing the onboards. Ridiculous! There are also the different engine configurations and even how they sound and rule changes over the years.

Interesting. I'll check it out.

I’ve been watching since the end of the 1st turbo era. To me the actual racing is as good as it’s ever been. F1 in the Good Old Days was a lot of people getting in line, often you wouldn’t see a single decent overtake for three races in a row. Now with DRS you can pass the bottlenecks which leads to more relevant racing. I only miss Murray Walker. That’s it. Ok, I also wish the cars blew up more.

I’d avoid Drive to Survive. Imagine you’re coming to Earth and you can only learn about it through Facebook and Twitter. It’s hyper polarizing synthetic drama designed to entertain people who like cop shows. It’s awful. It also gets things straight up wrong, which can be hard to realize.

DRS seems to be one of the biggest welcomed changes. It is true in the pre-DRS era you were watching for quite a while hoping someone makes a mistake (or mechanical failure) so an overtake can happen. Murray is great. "Oh my goodness! This is absolutely appalling! This is the worst start to a grand prix that I have ever seen in the WHOLE OF MY LIFE!".

I never seen the Netflix stuff and never planned to. I actually don't have any streaming subscriptions.

I have two of these myself;

F-1 Grand Prix Special: Driver's Eyes: Crash & Battle (1994) [PILW-1142]
F-1 Grand Prix: Jean Alesi (1995) [PILW-1219]

The former has two different audio tracks, with Japanese commentary on one channel and just the track audio on the other. The second one is entirely in Japanese, with some interviews in French.