Mountain drift battle filmed in 360-degrees

You’ve seen mountain drift battles before, but not like this.

French film company ODOXO tagged along to a French drifting event and slapped its 360-degree camera on a competitor, revealing a new way to watch these door-to-door duels play out.

The camera allows you to look anywhere on a 360-degree axis from where it’s mounted, in this case atop Jack Shenahan’s 410kW S13. The Irish driver was in Chamrousse, in the French Alps, with his RB25DET powered Silvia, where he found some rather scary BMWs to battle.

Drifting’s all about accuracy, but being able to see how close these guys run as trees and drop-offs lurk close-by adds another layer of respect. It’s also extremely fun as a viewer being able to choose who you follow.

The video quality’s not spectacular but the ‘virtual reality’ effect of the camera works well, especially with motorsport. Even Red Bull’s F1 team played with the new technology on Max Verstappen’s car around Zandvoort, seen below.

There’s lots of potential in the tech. Being able to ‘see all’ not only transforms the way this footage is viewed for us, but could be used to better investigate incidents. Expect more of this to follow.