Like the bright lights of Bahrain, allow us to shine a warm beam of racing into your dark, F1-less winter. Behold! Our guide to keeping your engines tuned in the offseason.
Formula E
The world’s premier electric racing series (and the closest thing to F-Zero yet created by humans) begins its season in December.
Depending on your location, Formula E is available to watch either on television or YouTube. For certain locked-down regions (such as the US), race replays are only made available a week or two after the race occurs. Unrelated: VPNs are a great way to secure your Internet traffic. Ever been to Singapore or South Africa?
If you’ve never watched Formula E before or fancy a refresher, we have a Patreon-exclusive Primer episode to get you caught up!
F3 Asian Championship
So this is technically a different championship from “regular” Formula 3 (it’s really quite confusing), but the upside is that this F3 holds races over the winter.
Not only that, it’s got some names you might recognize, like W Series’ Jamie Chadwick, Formula 2’s Tatiana Calderon, Haas test driver Pietro Fittipaldi (grandson of Emerson), and Jack Doohan (son of five-time MotoGP champion Mick).
It’s also a delightfully low-budget broadcast, which is always fun. Here’s their YouTube channel.
Old F1 Races
If you missed any F1 races from this season, you can catch up by subscribing to F1 TV. Here are some of our favorites:
Bahrain
Austria
Great Britain
Germany
Hungary
Brazil
It’s worth noting that F1 TV also gets you access to 2019’s F2 and F3 races!
Of course, F1 TV Archive also has plenty of fabulous older races. Our picks:
Belgium 1998
Brazil 2008
Canada 2011
Brazil 2016
Azerbaijan 2017 & 2018
2019 Races in Other Categories
Many racing series put their 2019 archives up for free, including:
Super GT (although this one seems to split its replays into 15-minute chunks?)
Macau Grand Prix: Q1, Q2, Qualifying Race, Feature Race (alternate link)
Other series have their own paid subscription services, which are sometimes discounted at the end of a season:
Other Media
We’re big fans of Chain Bear on YouTube if you want simple explanations of the more technical aspects of F1.
And if you missed any of F1’s Beyond The Grid podcast, here are some of our favorite episodes:
3: Robert Kubica
5: Martin Brundle
8: Jacques Villeneuve
29: Kimi Raikkonen
47: Kevin Magnussen
48: Ross Brawn on Brawn GP
56: Pastor Maldonado
57: Alex Albon
61: Jenson Button
71: Daniel Ricciardo
See you in 2020!