// Formula 1

I’ve always had a soft spot for F1, even if I’ve never followed the sport. Formula One Arcade is one of the first games I have a recollection of playing as a kid. It was Spyro, it was Crash, and it was Formula 1.

I couldn’t have told you a thing about how F1 really worked, but I knew that sunnovabitch Michael Andretti was always in first with his bright red car.

Fast-forward 20-something years and the F1 movie hits the big screen. It’s a great movie, you should see it. It even made our Top 5 Films of 2025 so Far list.

I was locked in. The strategy of the racers and their teams, the innovation that goes into creating these machines, the drama and storylines of the racers.

Of course, I assumed this stuff was played up a bit for the big screen.

While still riding the adrenaline high during my comparatively-lame drive home from the theatre, the thought wouldn’t stop nagging me: What if I got into F1? Nah, I couldn’t do that.

But the seed had been planted.

I spent the week watching F1 clips, listening to driver interviews, reading Reddit threads about the subject – everything I could get my hands on. Since you are currently reading this review, you know where this goes.

I subscribed to one month of F1 TV’s Premium tier.

I settled in to watch the British Grand Prix that weekend – a three-day event.

This is my review of Formula 1, the real life one.

// Accessible yet Premium

Before I get into the actual races and the drivers and everything relating to the sport itself, I need to talk about some other aspects of how you watch Formula 1.

Specifically how I have been very, very impressed at every step of the way.

They’ve made it extremely easy and accessible to get into the sport. They provide a written beginners guide as well as a high-quality animated video breaking down the ins and outs of the Formula 1.

Their website and apps are very user-friendly and pleasant to look at. There was never a single pain-point trying to find the information I wanted, or to get my subscription up and running. As a designer by day, I know how much work goes into making the entire user journey from interest to purchase this smooth. I see you Formula 1 employees, and I appreciate you.

With the one subscription you not only get access to everything related to F1, but F2 and F3 as well. The amount of additional content available to me was also impressive. Technical breakdowns, interviews, pre- and post-shows, podcasts – there is just so much to watch that’s included. 

Where I come from in the world of hockey and basketball, you often don’t get all the games in a subscription, or some are subject to regional blackouts. This will also depend on where you live and the contracts in place there. Since F1 has their own production and streaming services, it’s incredibly simple. You buy the thing, you get the whole thing. It feels like a miracle comparatively. 

Even outside the premium content, the frequency and production quality of the content uploaded to the F1 YouTube channel is wonderful. You can feel the amount of care and planning put into making sure everything with the F1 label feels premium and accessible. 

Perhaps I’m praising something that should be standard. But I’m so used to jumping through hoops, tolerating laggy streams, or audio cutting out. The fact that F1 TV worked seamlessly from the get go actually really impressed me.

Since I should note it, they offer F1 TV Premium for $129.99 a year with cheaper tiers also available. If you don’t care about getting a 4K feed, or using their custom view builder, you can watch a whole year of F1 for $99. I feel this is reasonable for what you get.

And there are no ads. Looking at you Sportsnet.

// F1 TV

So the experience around the sport is good, how about the experience watching it?

I had a great time. You can open the app, click “watch the thing,” and watch the thing. There are numerous bells and whistles on top of that, however, that really did it for me. 

At any time during the race, you can elect to switch your view from the default broadcast to other feeds. The default broadcast follows the action, cutting around the race to interesting events and offers commentary on everything.

But you can swap to watch the whole race from the cockpit of any driver you like. They all have cameras strapped onto their cars. You can also switch to a map view and see the locations of all the racers on the track.

With the custom view builder, you can put multiple of these screens into different layouts of your choosing. If you have a favourite racer or two, you can add their drivers perspectives to the side of the main broadcast. This is not available on all platforms, but it worked on my phone and was very fun. 

Need more info? Open up the Formula One app for live information on the race. You can see up-to-the-second charts on all the racers’ times, their tire conditions, their live positions on the track, and countless other things. The cars are packed to the gills with sensors, and a lot of this information is available to you.

// The Racing

Okay enough about the apps and website. You can probably tell I’m impressed with them, but that would all be worthless if the sport was not interesting.

I’m here to tell you that it is.

There is so much more strategy that goes into a race like this than I initially expected. I’m sure that’s showing my ignorance a bit, but I really was completely unaware of F1 – or racing as a whole – before a few weeks ago.

The F1 commentators do an excellent job of breaking down the actions and strategies of the racers and their teams. It paints a picture and a narrative that could easily be overlooked if they were too slow or less skilled at their jobs. They weave radio calls between drivers and their teams into the broadcase when relevant.

I enjoyed the second-by-second “gameplay” of the races. Big cars go fast. That’s fun. I don’t need to sell you on big cars go fast. You either like it or you don’t. I like it. 

What I can attempt to sell you on, however, are the storylines.

I can tell you that I was genuinely more invested in the storylines going on at the British Grand Prix this past weekend than I was at those in the F1 movie. I’m not even kidding. The drama is real. It feels like they wrote it ahead of time.

Let me tell you a story of five racers.

// The Tea

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris both race for the same team – McLaren. Oscar is first and Lando is second in the driver rankings overall for this season. Lando is British, and said before the race he would happily trade in all of his previous wins for a win here.

Lewis Hamilton races for Ferrari. He’s British, and is a highly decorated racer with all kinds of awards and records. He excels to an even higher level when racing in the British GP, on home turf. He has 9 first place finishes, and 12 consecutive podium finishes. That’s the longest streak by any driver at any circuit. He’s not had as stellar a year so far, so he was coming into this race with something to prove, and to hopefully maintain his streak.

Nico Hülkenberg (yes, the guy from the Metaphor ReFantazio crossover) is a veteran and skilled racer. Due to bouncing around in his career and driving consistently-below-average cars, he holds his own record. The most races without ever landing on the podium – first, second, or third. Due to the qualifying rounds, he starts this race in 19th. Basically last place.

Lastly we have Max Verstappen. Max is a world champion winning driver, and many consider him to be the most skilled driver currently racing. The only thing keeping him from dominance is his shitty car. It’s well known that the car he drives for Red Bull is very difficult. So much so that any team member he races with ahs little success with it. It’s only because of his skill that he still places highly.

Max begins the race in first and is eventually overtaken by Oscar. To his misfortune, he eventually spins out and finds himself back in 10th place. It’s not uncommon to hear expletive-filled radio calls from Max back to his team about how hard his car is to handle, and today was no different.

With the best guy knocked way back, the race eventually unfolds into two very exciting pairings. The two McLaren drivers in first and second. Between them and third is a 55-second gap. This is an absolutely insane gap that essentially guarantees they will be one and two. About three second separates them from each other with Oscar in first.

In third place, Hülkenberg. This race has been extremely rainy and difficult to handle, which has given a lot of the less experienced drivers a hard time. 4 of the 6 rookie drivers had crashed out and not even finished. Hülkenberg’s veteran knowledge kept him consistent, and he pushed himself all the way from basically last into third position.

Behind him and hot on his tail, is Lewis Hamilton.

So in third you have a guy who wants to break his losing streak, and in fourth you have a guy who doesn’t want to break his winning streak. Only one of them will get their way.

Let me tell you that the F1 world exploded with support for Hülkenberg to get his first podium finish. It was very tense with less than a second between them, Lewis aggressively trying to make a move.

Let’s jump back up to the McLaren boys. They both want to win very badly, despite being on the same team. First place is first place after all. Here’s where the drama comes in.

Oscar – the first place position holder – has been assigned a 10-second penalty for erratic braking earlier in the race. This penalty is taken by pulling into the pit and sitting for 10 seconds. The McLaren team radio in and tell him to pit, and to let Lando pass him. The alternative would be pitting them together and they both lose 10 seconds.

Oscar doesn’t feel like he deserved this penalty. The commentators even noted they thought it was harsh. After the swap, he radios back to his team asking them to make Lando give him his first place spot back because it wasn’t fair. They did not.

He rips out of the pit furious. He aggressively pushes for his first place position back.

After a very tense ending, these were the results:

Oscar, known for his calm demeanour, was practically spouting steam from his ears at losing his first place spot. Lando was overjoyed with winning his home’s race, the one he wanted most of all. And in one of the most wholesome moments in sports, literally everyone was celebrating Nico’s win.

Let me tell you there have not been many moments that were as edge-of-my-seat-inducing than watching Hülkenberg barely cling to his position for a historic win. Rarely have I been so quickly invested in a Sport’s cast of characters as I have been with the McLaren drama, or where Max will end up if he quits the Red Bull team next year for somewhere with a better car. 

Watching all of this unfold with a production quality that almost rivals that of the IMAX-shot F1 film made it something special.

I’m already counting down the days to the next grand prix in Belgium at the end of the month.

So congradulations Formula 1, your movie worked. I’m hooked. I’m here to tell you that if you liked the movie but aren’t sure about the sport, give it a chance. You might just like it even more.