“Formula One 1970: The Uncrowned Champion”

The Uncrowned Champion?é?Ø is the first in the series of F1 season reviews created using footage from the Brunswick archives.

At 52 minutes long, it is far shorter than the contemporary reviews we are used to, but all of the footage is in full colour – and especially interesting because video from the 1970s is hard to come by.

As with all of the videos in this series the footage is incomplete. Some entire races are missing, and because they used only a few cameras, many of the pivotal incidents from races are missed – such as Jack Brabham’s last-lap blunder at Monaco that cost him the race to Jochen Rindt.

Rindt went on to become the ‘uncrowned champion’, of course, because he died while leading the championship at Monza. The producers have included footage of that crash, and although it is shocking the viewer is spared any gory detail. It is thoughtfully done.

The commentary is generally very good. I much prefer it to the modern official reviews in that the voice over refers to events as they happened in the past, rather than using the present tense.

In 1970 the Grand Prix circus visited the likes of Clermont-Ferrand and it is fascinating to see just how rudimentary Grand Prix venues were 36 years ago.

The video is an insightful blast through the past. If only they had been able to capture more footage at the time – because what little there is is pure gold.

F1 Fanatic rating

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