I'm not a life-long fan of formula one. When I was a kid, my dad said it was boring and so it was boring and we watched British Touring Cars and Saloon Cars instead.

A few years ago, a regrettably estranged friend (I know you're reading this; please reach out) pretty much forced me to try F1 again. I did so and got hooked immediately.

I'm not sure why it appeals to me so much. The first season I watched was plagued with porpoising and was essentially a race to solve that issue without compromising to a degree that tipped the scale too far the other way. Since then it's been a procession with Max Verstappen at the head. It's been a bit boring but I still love it?

Because it's 2024, I'm in an F1 dads WhatsApp group and we're going to Spa Francorchamps in July and I'm super excited for that. I've got an F1 calendar on my phone that tells me when and where we're racing this weekend (I watch free practice highlights but I watch qualifiers, sprints and races in full).

I've also been watching the heritage races on the Formula 1 YouTube channel. For each GP they've been showing extended highlights from a past race and I love them. The mid-2000s cars look like something you might design if you were seven years old, and they sound like an angry, eight-foot mosquito. In a lot of ways I look forward to these historic highlights as much as the race itself. My F1 dads are less enthusiastic; they likely watched these races at the time. I'm the interloper.

It reminds me of The Big Lebowski. I love that The Dude listens to old bowling matches on tape to relax. My F1 Sundays with the kid are the most relaxing time of my week and I can be found snoozing in front of the F1; not through boredom but relaxation (unless it's Monaco - then it's boredom).

And so I had the idea to find some older F1 on YouTube to rip the audio from and listen to whilst I sleep. A decent idea in theory but the 90s races are balanced towards commentary and I don't think I can sleep with the dulcet tones of Murray Walker in my ear. I need to find some racing without commentary. Is that a thing people are doing?