Product Details

• Actors: Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Duke
• DVD Release Date: December 30, 2003
• Run Time: 145 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00018D61G
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #79,760 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Michael Schumacher's historic sixth World Championship is just one of many memorable highlights in the Official Review of F1's eventful 2003 season. Compiled from official broadcast coverage including excerpts from post-race interviews and qualifying pole-winners, this annual survey offers concise summaries of all 16 races from Australia (where Finland's Kimi Räikkönen scored a pivotal victory for McLaren) to Japan, where Rubens Barrichello secured a win for himself, the constructor's championship for Ferrari, and all-time greatest honors for his teammate, the über-German Schumacher. Brazil was crazy all around, with sporadic rain, frequent tire changes, a spectacular wipeout by Renault's Fernando Alonso (who still earned a third-place finish), and a judgment-decided victory for Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella. (Better use of graphics and narration would clarify race-to-race transitions, but knowledgeable F1 fans probably won't notice this forgivable flaw.)

"Schumi" scored an emotional victory at San Marino just hours after his mother's death, and won again in Italy (including his fastest-ever lap), Austria, Canada, and the rainy-day U.S. GP (while brother Ralf won the European and French GPs). Ferrari's new "shark-vented" F2003GA debuted at Imola; Juan Pablo Montoya challenged the championship with a win at Monaco (where 2002-to-2003 track changes are shown in split-screen from the cockpit of JPM's Williams); and Alonso's first-place finish at Hungary made him the youngest-ever GP winner. Despite numerous revisions in regulations and Ferrari's mid-season protest over apparent Michelin tire-width violations (judges dismissed the claim while Michelin corrected its tire size), the 2003 F1 season achieved its commercial goal with huge crowds, wacky highlights (remember that kilted loony on the track at Silverstone?), celebrity appearances, climactic races, intense competition from Williams, McLaren, and Renault (to contrast Ferrari's dominance in 2002), and the amazing achievement of Schumacher, now indisputably the greatest driver (statistically speaking) in the history of Formula One. --Jeff Shannon

Product Description
The world is talking about Formula One™ again, and here is your chance to see why. 2002 was marked by one team’s dominance, but 2003 was anybody’s game. Drastically improved displays from McLaren, Williams and Renault made life extremely tough for Ferrari and Michael Schumacher. New regulations, and a shift in the balance of power in the tire war, ensured that predicting the winner of each race was never easy, and as for the Championship…Eight different drivers stood on the top step of the podium. Three of them secured their maiden victories in FORMULA ONE! Kimi Räikkönen calmly took the title right down to the wire in only his second season with a top team! Juan Pablo Montoya upped his game and came so close. Nothing could faze Fernando Alonso. He became the youngest F1™ race winner in history! Go on board with him as he laps Michael Schumacher! Experience the fastest race in F1 history. Get to the heart of this roller coaster of a season and follow Michael’s struggle to win an unprecedented sixth world title. Color, 145 min.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wasting the DVD's Potential, March 8, 2004

By	John Nelson (Connecticut, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a fan of Formula One, I can't help but think how good this DVD could have been. Basically, what you have here is a VHS tape on DVD. Sure, the video and sound are better, but this disc makes almost no use of DVD's possibilities. For example, the overwhelming wish of F1 fans is for more in-car footage. Nothing conveys the feeling of speed, the agility, and, yes, the wheel-to-wheel racing that does take place in F1 like the car-mounted cameras do. And yet, all we get is a very basic, sequential report of each race, with all the standard footage including snippets of in-car video. For all it's deficiencies, the year 2000 review video did offer an "interactive" feature allowing access to race, pit, in-car, and telemetry views. The ideal season review disc would offer in-depth coverage of each race as well as access to separate driver's view video featuring the start and at least one full lap of each course. This disc is worth having for the Formula One fan, but future year end reviews will hopefully make better use of this format.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not as impressive as previous reviews of the year, January 30, 2004

By	Mark Jarvis (Half Moon Bay, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been a formula one fan since 1972 and have collected every review of the year since they started coming out. In recent years, the reviews have been fantastic owing to the extra in-car coverage you get and the benefits from having Bernie's own camera crews at every race.

So I couldn't wait for this DVD to arrive but when it did, I was disappointed. As F1 fans probably already know, Bernie cut back on his own TV efforts this year to save money and it certainly shows in this video. What you basically get is what you saw on TV when the race was live. There has been very little extra added.

Furthermore, the commentary isn't as insightful as usual and does little to analyse how the championship developed. It lacks behind the scenes interviews with drivers and just doesn't build the championship to the crescendo that it actually was. Come on - it was a great year for F1, but you wouldn't get that impression watching this video.

Having said that, as a die-hard fan, I still watched it all, but I got my F1-fix by going back a few years and watching the earlier reviews of the year. Here's to the first race in Melbourne.. I'll be waiting with bated breath.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Yet another mediocre DVD, February 24, 2004

By A Customer

The DVD mastering is poor. The transfer is solid, good colors, but the video itself- most of which appears to be taken from the lame world feed- is not the greatest.

1) Qualifying is close to all in-car, an improvement over the 2000 DVD. As to how the FIA can manage to govern the most technologically advanced cars on the planet and yet use big ugly low-resolution cameras that drop signals around trees is another story.

Don't hit chapter + during qualifying or you'll be treated to 5-10 seconds of a black screen. The menuing on this DVD is very peculiar, though not as overdone as the 2000 DVD.

Qualification shows JUST the pole-lap; no other highlights. If you're looking for the spinout that cost Raikkonen pole at Montreal, you need to look elsewhere.

2) The vast majority of the image is from the world feed, so it looks pretty weak. If you taped all of the races on VHS, you're not going to get much better with this.

3) Audio is front-channel only, probably stereo.

4) No practice highlights either.

Is it worth it? For completeness, maybe. if you're looking for a reference quality Formula One DVD, you've still got some waiting to do.