With Rainmen, Canal+ analyzes the impact of rain on motorsport

“Sometimes we even hope that the rain comes for the show.” Margot Laffite almost feels guilty hoping the sky will fall on the drivers' heads on race days, but it's hard to blame her. Who hasn't wished for rain to reshuffle the deck and level out the performance of the single-seaters?

It is these crazy races, contested in the rain, that explores Rainmen: Speed ​​and Precipitation, the new Canal+ documentary, broadcast this Sunday evening at 21 p.m., following the Grand Prix of F1 in Bahrain (17 p.m.) and MotoGP in Qatar (19 p.m.). Directors Tristan Henry and Mickey Mahut examine the impact of rain and how drivers manage a wet track.

As a common thread throughout the film of more than 1 hour 20 minutes, Felipe Massa returns, from Interlagos, to the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, where he lost the championship title on the last lap due to overtaking Lewis Hamilton on Timo Glock. The Brazilian talks about this paradoxical day for him: winning at home, but deprived of his dream of a world title, while his family had already started celebrating in the garage Ferrari.

From Gasly to Zarco via Pescarolo and Panis: the drivers recount the rainy hell

Ayrton Senna was also deprived of a prestigious victory in the 1984 Monaco GP, finishing behind Alain Prost after a race interruption that had caused a stir. In the streets of the Principality, Olivier Panis achieved his first success in 1996, and he recounts it in detail: from his presentiment in the morning - when he told his wife that he was going to make a podium - to his overtaking. He didn't need the rain to win at Monza in 2020, but it was thanks to the changing conditions that Pierre Gasly has climbed his last two podiums, at Zandvoort in 2023 and in Brazil last year. The only small drawback of the documentary: Interlagos 2024 is not mentioned, but it is a safe bet that the film was shot before the double podium of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon. The pilot Alpine He also talks about the difficulty of riding in a peloton in the rain, due to the lack of visibility.

Tristan Henry and Mickey Mahut had the clever idea of ​​also interviewing Jean-Michel Tibi, a cameraman who has covered more than 400 Formula 1 Grands Prix, who discusses the difference between the circuit and the television rendering: according to him, the techniques used do not show the intensity of the rain well enough, which is much heavier on site. In F1, drivers have difficulty seeing without a windshield, but it can become a handicap when the wipers stop working. This is what happened to Henri Pescarolo's Matra during the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1968. The four-time winner of the race, who shared the wheel with Johnny Servoz-Gavin, gives a chilling account of his race, in which he claims to have carried out a series of overtaking moves without any visibility of the cars he was overtaking.

Two-wheelers are also in the spotlight, notably Johann Zarco, who is always as sharp in his analyses. The Frenchman perfectly explains why he is so strong when the track is drying, but also how Jack Miller became the best rider in the world in the rain. Clermont-Ferrand's Christian Sarron also looks back on his one and only victory, at the 1985 West German GP. To see all this—and much more—tune in at 21 p.m. on Canal+.

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