F1 Coverage on the BBC
This season in F1 has been hotly awaited since Lewis Hamilton prised the title from Felipe Massa in the last round, in fact the last corner last year. We have also been keenly awaiting F1s return to the Beeb and the ensuing lack of advertising breaks as well as superior coverage as F1 returns “home”.
I’m not sure that I’ve been convinced by the BBCs commitment to the F1 cause, the coverage seems to be a back to basics approach and a general dumbing down of the sport. Each week we are treated to Jake Humphrey talking above the more seasoned and frankly more interesting guests. In Sundays Chinese GP coverage he even cut Mike Gascoyne short to cut to a montage of the drivers, I’m not sure that this is the type of presentation that F1 needs. He constantly reigns in David Coulthard and anybody else talking about anything interesting and brings them back to an inane point that *he* made.
Martin Brundle’s new co-commentator doesn’t fair much better in my opinion, he seems to offer little extra to the commentary and can actually be very annoying, lets relive the last lap of a great drive by Sebastian Vettel - I’m pretty sure that it was every corner he repeated, “Just keep it on the road”.
Now I know that I’m probably more technically interested in F1 than most and that I might actually understand the diffuser row. And that I’ve been following it for a good few years and therefore know quite a lot about the teams/drivers/personalities plus I understand the difference between understeer and oversteer but it just feels that all of the coverage is simplified. Some of the ITV crowd seem positively downhearted when they are asked to explain things.
The website doesn’t break the trend either, it’s badly organised, filled with superfluous content and hides all of interesting information, case and point; before the first GP I could find information on who each of the drivers fancied but I could not find the practice times anywhere. Not to mention the poor pre season testing coverage.
I’m sure that most of these gripes are part of the teething process and that the coverage will improve but I’m not impressed so far. At least advertisement break gave you the opportunity to make a cup of tea rather than running the gauntlet of missing something you could have seen (We won’t mention Imola). Given that the BBC have spent a lot of money of F1 I must admit I had expected more, but then the pre-season hype didn’t fill me with confidence, “The greatest car chase”, not how I would describe F1.
Good Hunting
GP madness
With only eight finishers this years opener was a car breaker - though actually I think the majority of the retirements were due to the lack of traction control ;). Hamilton won with Kimi a faltering 8th after Barichello’s disqualification, does that means he gets an engine and a point?
Button was out on the first corner, but at least the Honda is faster than Bernie’s motorhome this year. The renault looked a handful but at least Alonso looked like he was back on form - was he ever not…? Piquet didn’t look that class act that I expected him to be though it was a quiet debute. Boudais looked good - as did all the Red Bulls this weekend, though none of them finished (I’m sure that coulthard would have some words to say about that one - most of them to Massa).
The highlights for me were the fight between Kovaleinon (sp?) and Alonso, and Raikkonen. Rosberg getting a well deserved podium and the return to points (second in the table) of Williams. The BMWs were faster than I thought they’d be but still not fast enough. An interesting start to the season anyway - next week will tell us more…
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F1 is back
So a bad start for Kimi, Webber and Alonso. Good start for others. It’s good to have F1 back but the late nights still hurt! It looks like the race will be interesting as they get used to racing each other again - lots of young drivers this year so plenty of nerves for that first corner.
Well the grid’s a bit weird for tomorrow but we’ll have to see how that plays out - can the BMWs keep the pace up and will the Ferrari’s find any pace. Honda have made an improvement whereas Renault seem to have got worse, lets see.
1 Hamilton
2 Kubica
3 Kovalainen
4 Massa
5 Heidfeld
6 Trulli
7 Rosberg
8 Coulthard
9 Glock
10 Vettel
11 Barrichello
12 Alonso
13 Button
14 Nakajima
15 Webber
16 Raikkonen
17 Fisichella
18 Bourdais
19 Sutil
20 Sato
21 Piquet
22 Davidson
Traction control seems to have shaken everybody up, tomorrow will be interesting.
Good Hunting
F1 - The season of many sides…
With only a few days to go until the new F1 season takes hold and Charlotte’s weekends get ruined for the sake of two hours of TV I’m getting excited about it once more. I am however much more excited about places 3-8 this year. The winner and the second placed man will be either a McLaren or a Ferrari from what I can see and it’s going to be which out of Hamilton and Kimi can finish in the lower places more often who will win the championship.
The lower places will be much harder fought over with BMW seeming to slip back slightly - well they did have a very good traction control system 
and Williams upping their game. Renault will be in this group too along with (fingers crossed) Honda. Red Bull also seem to have the speed (if not the reliability) to reach this zone. There will always be strong races from the guys behind too who have kept the big guns honest for the last couple of years - mentioning no Japanese names.
I have to say that I think the Drivers crown will once again rest on a Finnish head but I think the Constructors is too close to call - Hekki hasn’t shown the consistancy that Alonso had and McLaren need this year and he may be their undoing. Third place in both titles is up for grabs though and although I’d be willing to bet that the third place Driver will be Massa or Hekki I wouldn’t be that surprised to see Alonso sitting there at the end of the season with his skills at managing something from nothing.
Drivers to watch this year - from my perspective are - Massa, can he really challenge Kimi or will he be resigned to the roll of second fiddles at Ferrari, Button, can he pull his Honda team back from last year, Rosberg, he’s now the team leader and with an improved package can be blindingly fast - I can still remember that race in Bahrain. Others are Sato, he’s always exciting, his move on Alonso this year goes down in my book along with Hakinnen/Schumacher/backmarker and Alonso/Schmacher/180R.
I’m not going to be that interested in the fates of Toyota or Force India, I can’t see either of them doing anything this year - I’m not sure how much longer Toyota will stick around to be honest and the Force India cars need a lot of engineering to get them any faster.
Traction control will be a big thing this year, it should seperate the men from the boys and I predict that we’ll see some relative changes in levels of performance between the drivers 
Roll on Australia!
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Oh well…
Kimi pulls off the seemingly impossible as Hamiltons challenge fails, with shades of Schumacher from last year Lewis fights back but it’s not enough to hold on his title lead, it all makes China look more silly.
At least theres next year for our british hopefuls… I bet that JB is secretly relieved…
Good Hunting