Have Your Say – What Story Needs to be Told in Racing

Next Racing Documentary 01.jpg
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below with any documentaries you’d like to see made to highlight exceptional personalities or events from the world of motorsports.

Often when we live through an era, the historical significance of it is not immediately obvious. Or, if we didn’t experience the story while it happened, it can be exciting to learn more about a given personality or event. In either case, a documentary can be a great way to relive or experience a piece of history.

With that in mind, and continuing a series that your support has been overwhelming toward, we want to hear what motorsports personality or event you feel deserves a documentary like we’ve seen with the excellent Schumacher Netflix doc. This might be your favourite race driver that doesn’t get enough credit, or perhaps a single race or race season that you feel ranks among the best, or maybe even a racing game or sim that needs a cinematic tribute.

The first example that comes to mind would be Lewis Hamilton. The legacy of the most popular driver in the most popular motorsport series will echo long past his retirement. Despite holding numerous significant F1 records, he has remained a divisive figure throughout his career. How history will view Hamilton remains to be seen, but surely his story is worthy of a documentary.

Another example might be Michèle Mouton. The presence of females in motorsports is becoming more commonplace these days, but Mouton began her racing career in a time when it was exceedingly rare. Not only did the French driver build a reputation for her exceptional rally achievements, but she also participated in the grueling Tour de France Automobile, and after her driving days has moved to the office as president of the FIA's Women & Motor Sport Commission.

Or perhaps a virtual motorsports documentary is due. One idea might be a feature on Gran Turismo. Some readers may remember when the original GT was released in the late 1990s and eschewed the flashy brands and unrealistic vehicle performance of its gaming contemporaries in favour of more lifelike racing physics and performance. This spawned numerous sequels which collectively sold over 80 million copies over a quarter century and grew into the biggest international championship series in virtual racing and even became a part of the Olympics.

Let us know what drivers or events from the world of motorsports deserve recognition via a documentary, or if you’ve stumbled upon any great motorsports docs that people should check out.

Image by Toby Parsons from Pixabay
About author
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

Comments

Premium
How about a documentary on Michael Delaney and the 1970 24 hours of Le Mans? Would be great to hear about how Michael came up the ranks.
 
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Premium
Let me disagree about this statement : "The presence of females in motorsports is becoming more commonplace these days, but Mouton began her racing career in a time when it was exceedingly rare."

During the 70's there was a lot more women in motorsports than today and in fact there has been steps backwards since that period, at the same time as the PC fluff was going more and more proeminent.

Let's have a quick look at them during the 2nd half of the 70's:
- Lella Lombardi had a fair chance in F1 and she raced in many endurance events, including several 24 h du Mans, and wining several podiums.
- There were a bunch of French and Belgian women driving regularly at Le Mans and in touring/endurance championships during the 70s: Yvette Fontaine (who was a Ford factory driver), Christine Beckers, Anny-Charlotte Vernay, Christine Dacremont, Marianne Hoepfner, etc. Many of them teamed with high-level champions in endurance events (like Ickx, Beltoise, etc).
- Many of them had also drives in rallying. The French rallying team Aseptogyl had exclusively female drivers and was active during the whole 70's.

Michèle Mouton has remained the most famous women in driving because she was the most successful, but she was part of a rather strong group of French and Belgian female drivers.
Not sure how much weight you put on it, but Christina Nielsen did win her class in IMSA a few years ago. However, all the attempts to team her up with Katherine Legge and others have not been nearly as successful.

There have been all-women teams in the sportscar series, but they haven't done very well.
 
How the hell Codemasters get the F1 and license from the FIA every year would make a story in itself
It's a very expensive license and the margins are not very wide. Though sim racing has grown, the genre is very much a niche and F1 a segment of a niche. For some development studios it simply makes little business sense.
 
Premium
John Barnard would make an excellent subject for a documentary. I read The Perfect Car a couple of months ago and was amazed at how many innovations he brought to the sport. The carbon fiber chassis and the paddle shifter are the most famous. It would also be interesting seeing his on again/off again relationship with Ferrari.
 
From racing: Jackie Steward, Niki Lauda or Brawn GP.
From rally however... I would love to see many documentaries. Richard Burns, Henri Toivonen, Michelle Mouton, Colin McRae, Sobiesław Zasada, Janusz Kulig, Ari Vanaten, Walther Rohl...
 
Maldonado and why he crashed into everyone because of his high FOV. I know it is because of his high FOV. It really is.
 
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A documentry about playing games? The question is about real life..not playing games

Oh sorry I thought my suggestion might have qualified as the question included...

This might be your favourite race driver that doesn’t get enough credit, or perhaps a single race or race season that you feel ranks among the best, or maybe even a racing game or sim that needs a cinematic tribute.

Also, I see sim racing as an alternative first step to a motorsport career. Some people are trading up karting for esports. We have seen a fair number of drivers making the move from sim to real world so I think documenting esports is not a bad shout.
 
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Premium
Fernando Alonso. A promising youngster starting with Minardi, to beating Micahel Schumacher, through Spygate, Crashgate, team orders, controversy, a strange test crash, Indy and much more
 
I would love to see a Documentary about Porsche Brun Racing from Walter Brun. IMO the best Racing Team ever. A lot of legends raced for him.
 
First one that comes to mind is John Force from the NHRA. Not so much his rise to become the most dominant driver in the sport's history, but how he got sober. There are a bunch of articles out there where his daughters talk about him being absolutely terrifying at home and that they couldn't even have friends over because he'd get so drunk he'd start punching walls and screaming at them. The family worked to cover this up until just a few years ago. Would be interesting to see how he got through it.

Second would be Monster Jam as it appeared on TNN in the late 90s/early 2000's. Monster Trucks were always sort of a niche motorsport that would get regional TV airplay. In the late 90's they made a few moves to get on a Friday night primetime TV slot and started packing US football stadiums. They did this with a field of largely independent driver/owners who had no experience in front of TV cameras and no idea how to create good storylines. Yet their work catapulted Monster Jam into a massive worldwide travelling show. Would be worth revisiting those pivotal three or four years as the brand grew from niche events into a television power house.

Third, and this is biased because I live here, would be Alberta's strange relationship with racing. At one point we had a dedicated road course that hosted a Can-Am event in the 60's/70's. The drag strip portion attracted the likes of Don Garlits & Shirley Muldowney. We produced one of the greatest NHRA crew chiefs of all time. We had a Champcar race, an IHRA national event, a World of Outlaws race, a Pinty's Series race, and a stop on the ASA Late Model schedule. None of this exists anymore. Edmonton Speedway was bulldozed. Calgary's Race City was bulldozed. IndyCar packed up and left, so did the World of Outlaws & Pinty's series, and the IHRA all but folded. The question is... why?
 
My #1 on the list.
A historic, varied in-depth documentary of the fantastic and fascinating life of Bernd Rosemeyer.

Rather in the format of Nate Adam's and Carolla's "Shelby American" or Asif Kapadia's "Senna" than in a blockbuster melodramatic shallowed "Ford V Ferrari/Le Mans '66" format.
 
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Sergio Perez - and you may think "why??" well Sergio Perez when he was starting his career being 13 in 2003 karting in Mexico he had a crash with the son of the leader of the Mexican Federation of Motorsports in that time, after crashing with Klaus Schinkel Jr (his rival at that time for the championship) both started to fight, and then their families started to fight, after that the father of Schinkel used his power and contacts to affect Sergio's career, giving a death threat to the race director to give Sergio unjustified sanctions, so the next race Sergio was disqualified from the race, and eventually Sergio was banned from racing in Mexico missing the CART race that was held in the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and the Easy Kart Championship (Which he was also leading), all this led to Sergio and his brother Antonio(Later NASCAR Mexico champion in 2007) to train privately in the "Brothers Gallo" circuit in Guadalajara, Jalisco with Formula cars that were lended by Tomás López Rocha (IMSA Champion in the United States) a Formula Vee, a Formula Reynard and a Formula 3, after that with the help from his brother, his father and Carlos Slim he travelled to Germany alone with 14 years old living in a restaurant that was from a friend of his uncle, after going to the Skip Barber Racing School and the German Formula BMW (Where he was the youngest winner ever) after that he won Formula 3 with 16 years old and got to GP2 and one of the key moments of his career happened, he won the Monaco GP with all his family there with that almost securing a Formula 1 seat, finally after more than 2 decades, Mexico had another Formula 1 driver as Carlos Slim Dommit announced Sergio was going to race for Sauber in 2010, after that we all know what happened going to his first win and the challenges with Red Bull, Sergio raced oficially in Mexico until 2015 in the Mexican Grand Prix, and Klaus Schinkel Jr now races shitty Renaults in Mexico. I think that would make a REALLY cool documental.
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(This just made me think how normal is my life just regular 15 (almost 16 in 1 week) year old guy who wants to be a Formula 1 driver, who finished 3rd in his first championship racing karts with 13 (rental karts rip), but pandemic screwed it all left my dad without job, and just has an Xbox 270° used misaligned wheel with broken paddle shifters which has almost the same age as me and has it since 4 years ago but somehow manages to win Assetto Corsa online races in WSS and RaceU (Wanted to race in SRS but I need to be older of 18 I think) so yeah, I guess I would need a BIG miracle to get 100,000 MXN pesos out of nowhere to get a professional kart and get things going, also maybe it's too late rip so guess Esports are my only hope.)
Unbelievable, man. I didn't know that Perez's backstory could be that dark cos he was involved in a tussle with some lowlife oligarch whose family ran the nation's motorsports federation. Big respect to Checo man.
 
The motorsport-themed documentary I wanna see happening:

Drivers:
- Takuma Sato (from bicycle racing to F1, to double Indy winner)
- Keiichi Tsuchiya/DK (an in-depth doc would be necessary on this dude, I mean he started his racing career on illegal Touge street racing in Japan and he eventually raced on touring cars and JGTC, even had several outings on the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours with the best finish of 2nd overall)
- John Buffum
- Christian Horner
- Steve Millen (+ maybe the whole Millen family)

Cars:
- Nissan Skyline GT-R's dominance in touring car racing
- Chaparall cars
- A doc about the rise of virtual racing cars
- CCR Nissan 300ZX Z32 (IMSA GTO/S perennial contender 1989-'94)
- Dodge/Chrysler Viper GTS-R in GT2 racing
- Porsche 962's second life as Dauer 962C

Teams/Constructors:
- The Rise and Fall of Red Bull Racing
- Clayton Cunningham Racing (one of the well known classic IMSA GT teams running SA and FC RX-7s, as well as the aforementioned Z32 300ZX)
- Dome (Japanese race car constructor)
- Prodrive
- Dallara

Games/Virtual Motorsports:
-rFactor
- The Making of Assetto Corsa
- The Story Behind The Greatness of Forza Series

Racing Engineers:
- Gordon Murray
-Adrian Newey
-Jim Hall
- Ross Brawn
- Rory Byrne
-Ferdinand Piech

Lore:
- The Story Behind Unorthodox Racing Liveries (about some of the strangest liveries in motorsports, including BAR Split livery, Anime-based liveries and so on)
- The Dark Underworld of Professional Motorsports (scandals, lowlife oligarchs like Storey, Strolls and Mazepins, etc)
- Diversity or Diversity? (or docs covering the problems with diversity and woke culture in motorsports)
- Docs about history of Rally Raid
- Gulf Fiction (on how FOM became super-obsessed with holding F1 GPs in Middle-East nations and the conflicting visions between anyone involved)
- The role of Psychology in the world of Motorsports (a very important and vital idea for a motorsport documentary, delving the minds of people involved in motorsports, or in the other words, the psychological aspects in motorsports and its place in the motorsports world. Now call me a geek for this idea, go ahead. I recently graduated with Bachelor's Degree of Psychology so that's why I pitched this idea)
- A Documentary about whether Drifting earned its place in Motorsports, plus its history and how drifting gained popularity and discussing its superiority and inferiority against other disciplines of motorsports, and the future of Drifting with the advent of ICE bans and EV revolution.
- Motorsports and the surrounding popular culture (the topic revolves around comics, movies, doc. movies, Manga and Anime series that used motorsports as the primary theme. Should include: "What Makes a Good Motorsports Movie?", "Comics and Animations about motor racing")
 
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Staff
Premium
Crash and Burn about Tommy Byrne was the sort of thing I like to see rather than rehashes of famous stories.
Just wanted to say thanks for this suggestion. I found it on Amazon for free:


Really enjoyed it. As you say, more refreshing than the usual format you get as they didn't fill it full of people singing his praises
 

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What's needed for simracing in 2024?

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