I watch a ton of racing, it’s basically all I watch. I don’t really watch tv, or Netflix, or anything like that anymore.
Some races, the big ones, like F1, or Le Mans, or Bathurst, Indy, etc, I enjoy watching those races live, as I enjoy engaging with people and the commentators via social media during the race.
I don’t have cable anymore, so can’t watch F1 live. I haven’t tried any of the F1 streaming services yet, I haven’t heard great things about it. I just use YouTube and other dark back alleys of the internet to watch F1.
WEC is a complete joke. Like I said I don’t have cable, so don’t have Velocity. I downloaded and payed for the WEC app, only to find out after giving them my money that the App is geo-blocked in North America. Watched Le Mans on a pirated stream this year. The rest of the WEC races, I just wait for them to show up on YouTube.
Things like Bathurst, Daytona 24, Nur 24, Indy 500, I watch on the livestreams, and it’s fantastic!
That said, living in BC (PST), I’m in a terrible time zone for watching a lot of European racing. So, a lot of times, I can’t catch races live. There’s also too much racing in one weekend to watch it all, and too much in the summer months to watch it all. For this reason, I save watching some series for mid week, while others I completely avoid until off season or summer break.
I pay for the Motortrend On Deman app, but it is pathetic and terrible. It takes weeks for them to upload races, sometimes they only upload 5min highlight packs, and other times, they’ll only upload random races as opposed to a complete season. The app has V8SC, BTCC, DTM, Blancpain, and more.
Like I said, they’re slow and incomplete in uploading V8SC, so whilst I pay for the app, I watch V8SC on pirated streams, as it’s the only way to watch it here in Canada without being months behind schedule.
Their coverage of BTCC is worse. For this series, the last several years I’ve been able to find full races on YouTube, just have to do some hunting.
Blancpain and DTM, along with F2, GP3, and F3, I watch on YouTube as they get uploaded.
MotoGP I watch on YouTube, can’t find it anywhere else. Is there a motogp ap that I could buy which would let me watch full races either live or delayed? Can’t find WSBK anywhere either, so that I watch on pirated streams.
ISMA and Indycar, I usually leave those for my midweek watching, as those races get uploaded to YouTube in a timely fashion, on official channels.
SuperGT I watch on the excellent NISMO TV.
WRC I watch on Redbull TV app. It’s decent, has both live and speedy upload of replays. Some of the featurettes are really cringe worthy, but they balance out with some of the excellent co-commentators they use, like Louis Moyer (Sainz’s old co-driver, could listen to that guy talk about rallying all day lol).
WTCR and the rest of the TCR regional series, I find those on YouTube (they’re in Motortrend app too, but uploaded very slowly)
I also spend a lot of time watching old races that I can find on YouTube. From F1 alone, my French, German, Portuguese, and Japanese is growing nicely
Most of my race watching, I don’t need all kinds of active controls, switching from this camera to that camera, etc. Usually, I watch races while doing other things, like cooking dinner or playing video games, even working in the shop, I’ll being the iPad out there and listen to a race like it’s on the radio.
**Just speaking of cameras, my biggest pet peeve with camera angles is the rotating onboard cameras used in Indycar. I can’t stand it when they pan that camera during an overtake, you end up missing all the critical info you can get from watching an overtake from an onboard camera.**
That said, there are times, especially with the premier categories which people like to have discussion about, I would really like the ability to go back to a race, and dissect certain moments from as many angles as possible, if for no other reason than to learn, gain understanding, and participate in conversation.
I don’t watch illegal streams because I want to be badass, or stick it to the man. They’re simply the most proficient way to watch global motorsport in Canada. I have no problem paying money for apps like Motortrend or WEC, but in y experience thus far, the apps are complete crap.
