DVD Review: Ferrari Race to Immortality
Positives
Negatives
F1 history tells us when Ferrari teammates are squabbling its because the race car is competitive and winning GPs – think Villeneuve and Pironi, Prost & Mansell, Schumacher & Barrichello and now Vettel and Leclerc.
“Ferrari Race to Immortality” is another F1 team documentary film with big studio distribution (Universal) but unlike the excellent “McLaren” movie, this film just seems like endless snippets of old Grand Prix race footage strung together with voice-over narration by drivers’ wives and girlfriends and F1 journalists.
The documentary focuses largely on the driver pairing of Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins (not quite the film version of Chris Nixon’s “Mon Ami Mate” but close). The other Ferrari drivers, the marginalised Luigi Musso, fellow Italian Eugenio Castellotti and Alfonso de Portago are also featured but a more like side characters.
The film footage is the main attraction of this film – some of it has been colourised and there is old archival film shot by Wolfgang von Tripps. The images definitely help bring to life the cars of that era.
A word of warning – there’s actually very little of Enzo Ferrari in the film and the director has included old race footage of some extremely horrific Grand Prix accidents (when drivers had no seatbelts…)
As much as I wanted to rate this film highly, there are so many other more engaging F1 films.
Wow Factor/ Money shot: Great archival footage
Suitable for: Only hard-core F1 history fans
