Does anyone have proof of what POV is actually faster.

Is 1P faster for individual tracks but 3P (Default) faster in full game runs?

Thanks in advance. Don’t want to put in time practicing the slower POV.

First person is the fastest. It improves the framerate and a better framerate means you get more stable physics on average. The most obvious way to tell the difference is by the average jump height you get and how often you will get those random jumps. Remember, air time is bad in this game.

In case you're wondering why you sometimes see people switch back to third person for a moment: That is done to have a better chance at clearing a gap with a jump, sometimes low jumps are actually not ideal.

This is something I discovered when I first started speedrunning this game a few years ago. To the best of my knowledge, here's how it works.

Essentially, the car model is not rendered in first-person. As less strain is put on the N64 in this view, this makes the overall framerate (which in this game is "unlocked" and can vary within a pretty wide range) higher on average.

The framerate in this game affects the physics simulation. It is not fully understood, but the best understanding to date is that the higher the framerate when the Beetle leaves the ground, the higher the likelihood of "low" jumps, which save considerable time but are not directly in your control. In most cases, the less time spent in the air, the better, so first-person view has the overall effect of making you faster by way of reducing airtime throughout the run relative to third-person.

It is important to note that it is not directly faster to use a different view. The overarching strategy is just to use the view that produces the most favorable physics calculation for the current context, which is usually first-person.

Music and sound effects are handled by the main CPU on the N64 console. In some cases (e.g. other N64 games), disabling music or sound can positively impact performance or framerate. It is subtle, but this appears to be the case in BAR! as well. Therefore, you might want to also disable music/etc. depending on your taste.

I should also note it is possible to achieve very competitive times without doing any of this. The first-person stuff is pretty highly recommended for your own sanity due to it reducing the likelihood of random "high" jumps which will ruin runs, but even in the most impactful scenarios it isn't so much a direct advantage as securing better odds for good things.